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In the Thetis manual page 17, 3.1 it says "The radio will need protocol 2 firmware installed and working" does that mean I cannot install Thetis with protocol 1 firmware already installed from Apache Labs. I should be getting my new 7000DLE MKII today.

No, not at all. Thetis now works fine with both P1 and P2 firmware. Many versions ago this wasn't true, but now it's not a problem.

There is one important limitation of Thetis with P1 firmware. Thetis only supports 192KHz sample rates with P1. So make sure in Thetis > Setup > General > F/W Set you make both sample rates 192000.

Don't worry about this limitation. After getting settled in with your new rig you'll be upgrading to Protocol 2 soon after. But since you are so new to the (very complicated!) world of openHPSDR architecture radios, best to take it one step at a time.

Scott,

Which sample rates would you recommend when using Thetis and P2? I have both RX1 and RX2 at 192000. Didn't realize that with P2 I could set them higher.

What is the real-life, practical benefit that one can hear and/or see from using higher rates?

Juha

The advantage of higher sample rates is that it lets you visualize on the spectral display a much larger slice of the RF spectrum.

I have mine set to 768KHz. At that setting I can see the entire band at a glance on all bands except for 10 and 6M. The zoom-to-band (ZTB) button is very handy for that. I like being able to see how the CW, data and phone bands are populated all at once. It provides good situational awareness of band activity and performance in one shot.

I don't like to use 1536KHz (1.536MHz) because at that sample rate it's impossible to zoom in as far as I like sometimes on the spectral display. However, at that sample rate you can almost see the entire 10M band, and you can see the entire 10M phone sub-band. And if I was doing a lot of SWLing I'd probably choose 1536KHz just because it makes finding signals easier.

Higher sample rates require better LAN performance, better CPU performance and, as already noted above, restrict how far you can zoom in on the spectral display.

Scott,
I am asking this and I may be way off here but using above a 192khz sample rate, does this affect Pure Signal. I may be off on a tangent here and apologize if so?

Thanks,
Joe
WD5Y

Sample rate does not affect PureSignal.

Sorry about that, I thought there was a flag that mentioned pure signal and sampling rate.

Thanks,
Joe
WD5Y

JJ4SDR wrote:Scott,

Which sample rates would you recommend when using Thetis and P2? I have both RX1 and RX2 at 192000. Didn't realize that with P2 I could set them higher.

What is the real-life, practical benefit that one can hear and/or see from using higher rates?

Juha

While others have mentioned the advantage of higher rates, one trick I have discovered is if your frequency calibrating to WWV, you get a much better resolution and as a result better precision doing it at the lowest sample rate(either doing it manually or using the calibrate button). I usually go to the lowest sample rate for the calibration and then go back to the my usual sample rate. Obviously, this would not apply if you if you use GPSDO.

It also helps to increase your FFT bin size to maximum during frequency calibration. But now we are really off topic...

I appreciate the comments on this!

Juha

w-u-2-o wrote:No, not at all. Thetis now works fine with both P1 and P2 firmware. Many versions ago this wasn't true, but now it's not a problem.

There is one important limitation of Thetis with P1 firmware. Thetis only supports 192KHz sample rates with P1. So make sure in Thetis > Setup > General > F/W Set you make both sample rates 192000.

tie (very complicated!) world of openHPSDR architecture radios, best to take it one step at a time.

I just got the 7000 fired up. it worked the first time. I noticed that the firmware section states protocol 2 (v3.9) Did it come with protocol 2?

JeffH wrote:I just got the 7000 fired up. it worked the first time. I noticed that the firmware section states protocol 2 (v3.9) Did it come with protocol 2?

It would appear so! Was this unit delivered directly from Apache Labs???

Important point of clarification: "v3.9" means the version of the Protocol interface control document it's based on. The actual version number of the firmware is on the first line that looks like this: "Ver: x.y.z"

What do you see in place of the "x.y.z"?

w-u-2-o wrote:

JeffH wrote:I just got the 7000 fired up. it worked the first time. I noticed that the firmware section states protocol 2 (v3.9) Did it come with protocol 2?

It would appear so! Was this unit delivered directly from Apache Labs???

Important point of clarification: "v3.9" means the version of the Protocol interface control document it's based on. The actual version number of the firmware is on the first line that looks like this: "Ver: x.y.z"

What do you see in place of the "x.y.z"?

What I see in the firmware window is:
V2.1.7
ID Orian MKII
Protocol 2 (V3.9)
PLL Locked

I bought it new direct from Apache Labs.

Wow. First 7000 that I'm aware of that has ever been delivered by Apache with P2 firmware already installed.

I wonder if this is going to become the norm?