Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] USRP

[Eric Blossom]

On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 02:16:35PM -0600, Bahn William L Civ USAFA/DFCS wrote:
> I believe I am at the point were I should be able to talk to the USRP,
> but can't.

Sorry to hear that ;)

> We presently have the USRP with two BasicTX and BasicRX boards
> installed.
> 
> We are running Fedora Core 5
> 
> We have installed GNU Radio per the instructions in the README as
> closely as possible.
> 
> If I run the dial_tone.py example, I get the tones out of the
> headphones.
> 
> If I run the usrp_siggen.py it requires an RF center frequency. I have
> no idea how this should be entered (i.e., it is in Hertz, MHz, ???)
> 
> I tried 
> 
> # ./usrp_siggen.py -f 10

That would be 10 Hz.

Everywhere a frequency is expected you can use a float followed
immediately by an SI suffix.  E.g., -f 92.3M 

> What I got was nine copies of a "connection timed out" message and a
> complaint about it not being able to load the FPGA bitstream.

Sounds like at USB problem, perhaps a bad cable.
Try another cable and ensure that the cable is properly seated on both
ends.  If you're using an external USB hub, perhaps in a monitor,
please try without the hub in the path.

> The bitstream it was trying to load was:
> 
> /usr/local/share/usrp/rev4/std_2rxhb_2tx.rbf

That's correct

> I know that there is at least some communication going on with the
> board, because when I power it up I get the green LED blinking at a
> little over 3Hz. When I run the siggen program, the blinking stops (it
> usually goes away, but once stayed on continuously). I have to cycle
> power to get the blinking light back.

It should never stop blinking.  When power is first applied, it
should blink at about 3 Hz.  After any application is run (which loads
the "real firmware"), the LED should blink at approximately 1 Hz.

Eric