Apache Labs Community Forum

All,

I have a newly received ANAN from India, delivered on Feb 8th, that has ANAN-7000DLE MKIII marked on the Front Panel.
I am running Thetis 2.9.0.6 software successfully that auto recognizes the unit is on Protocol 1 firmware.
7000DLE has been selected in the “Setup ->General -> H/W Select” popout menu.
Thetis shows in the bottom right of the “Setup ->General -> H/W Select” popout menu the following:
Firmware
Ver: 2.8
ID: Orion MKII
Protocol 1

Some assumptions I have based on what I have read throughout the forums:

• Any new 7000DLE marked as a MKIII that was shipped after Jan 2023 will have the 5CEFA9F31 Cyclone V series FPGA. This is important to know and confirm as it affects the P2 firmware version that the unit is compatible with.

• It is my understanding, and I could be wrong, that the new FPGA listed above is associated with the newer Orion MKIII board that should be in any ANAN-7000DLE MKIII unit.

So my big conundrum:

• Given all the above, why am I seeing in the config screen under Firmware ID: Orion MKII?

• Is it because the firmware that is currently loaded will reflect such over that of what the hardware may truly be? In other words, if the firmware were upgraded and the HW installed is truly an Orion MKIII, would Thetis then reflect Orion MKIII within the “Setup ->General -> H/W Select” popout menu?

• Or do I have a new ANAN-7000DLE MKIII marked unit that was mistakenly equipped with an Orion MKII board over that of an Orion MKIII board?

• This also kind of ties into whether I truly have the newer 5CEFA9F31 Cyclone V series FPGA installed, or one of the two older FPGA series as that affects the firmware version that is compatible with my specific ANAN. In other words, what differences define what an Orion MKII version board is versus that of an Orion MKIII board?

• Or, am I just all kinds of confused regarding the rev of Orion Board that should be installed in a unit marked as a ANAN-7000DLE MKIII?

Any help in resolving my suspected confusion/observations would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Mike
W5CUL

Don't feel bad. Apache's naming conventions for both the SDR board and the entire 7000 assembly are, at best, confusing, and, at worst, profanity inducing.

Also, Thetis is interpreting what kind of hardware you have based on some messages provided by the firmware. Believe it or not, for many years it couldn't even properly report the installed firmware version level. Thanks to Rick and Richie's (the currently active developers) combined efforts, at least that part is fixed.

Since all the revisions of the Orion MKxxx boards are functionally the same the Thetis software currently just reports all of them as an Orion MKII.

The absolute best way to know what you have specifically is to look at the firmware revision number and then look at how that breaks out here for Protocol 1:

https://github.com/TAPR/OpenHPSDR-Firmw ... -Andromeda

This is unambiguous because a board with firmware loaded that does not match the FPGA will not run, not even a little bit.

Since you have P1 v2.8, and it works, then you know without any doubt you have a board with the 5CEFA9F31 Cyclone V series FPGA, whatever it might be called.

It's worth noting that Apache has never designed the SDR boards with version identification registers. That means that the Bootloader firmware loading tool has no way of knowing what kind of board it is. Therefore it's up to the user to figure it out by looking at the info provided at the above link.

Scott,

Thank you for the quick reply! I certainly feel better after your explanation and history lesson. I was about to open it up and check the board screening.

I have only had this SDR for 2 days now and I am already impressed with its receive capabilities, certainly sounds smoother than its competitors. I have not verified the transmit yet, but will run some standard checks tomorrow into a dummy load to ensure all is working good.

Again, thank you, Scott!

73,

Mike
W5CUL