[Elecraft] YABD - (Yet Another Band Decoder)

[Brett Howard]

Ok so I've been looking at setting up a set of bandpass filters that
are automatically selected based on the K3's VFO.  I'd like later
flexibility to grow this into a much more complicated system with
possible antenna switches and amplifiers...  I know that everyone has
a different setup with their own requirements and everyone wants
things a little different.

So I thought that building a band decoder would be fun.  I'm planning
on building the band decoder using an ARM Coretex M3 processor running
at 48Mhz.  This project is planned to be done completely openly.  I'm
starting a web page for the project here
(http://k3decoder.googlecode.com).  There you can see the beginnings
of the board that we're going to start with.  I've got documentation
on the board as well as the processor that resides on this board.
I've also placed links to the operating system we're planning on
running as well as the schematic capture and layout tools we're
planning on using.  These tools are still preliminary and we're
willing to take suggestions.

The engineering requirements for the 1.0 release of the software is
being put together in wiki form here
(http://code.google.com/p/k3decoder/wiki/EngineeringRequirementsRel1_0).
 Anyone who wishes can leave comments on these requirements.  We'll
discuss it and determine how things should look.  I should be getting
the first development platform here in a few days and will get started
publishing code out to the site that anyone will have access to via
SVN.  While the code will be open to anyone to capture and view during
the process we're probably going to not accept contributions or
patches against the source until the 1.0 release milestone is reached.

The development platform can be purchased for $60USD.  From there
there will be a driver board that a schematic will be created for.
This driver board will connect to the .1" header location at the
bottom of the development platform.  All parts will be purchasable
through DigiKey and part numbers/links to the order pages will be
documented to make it easy for anyone to build one of these and get
the software loaded into it.

I'd greatly appreciate any and all input on what should be included in
a basic band decoder in order to be considered a successful 1.0
release.  If there thoughts and inputs that are beyond initial scope
perhaps I'll start a 2.0 milestone requirements document for further
discussion.

Thanks much!

~Brett (N7MG)