Floating Vivado License for FPGA Work Purchased – Will be Available for Community Use

Thanks to the generous support of Yasme Foundation, ARRL Foundation, and many individual Open Research Institute supporters, ORI has purchased a full floating Vivado license for FPGA work. This includes the System Generator for DSP.

We are testing a setup that will make team and community use of this license possible. This is a big step forward from our current situation and will greatly accelerate FGPA design and test.

The first step was setting up a license server at a donated data center. Many thanks to Nick KN6NK for offering the time, resources, and expertise to get this working.

The second step, being tested right now, is using GitHub as a directory service for adding users and keys.

The goal is for users of the license to be able to add themselves with minimal admin overhead while asserting some reasonable control over access.

GitHub provides a way for users to get public keys. The work required of us is to script user management and periodically sync key management.

Thank you to EJ Kreiner for helping test and refine this community asset. We anticipate being able to support as many amateur technical communities and projects as possible, to get the greatest possible use from the license.

Special thanks to ARRL and Yasme. We would not be able to afford this investment without their support.

Yasme Foundation Generously Awards Grant to ORI

Yasme Foundation Generously Awards a $30,000 Grant to Support the Open Research Institute (ORI) Amateur Radio Satellite Service Research and Development Program

ORI, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to open source research and development in amateur radio, has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the Yasme Foundation. This grant completes the Phase 1 fundraising campaign and allows ORI’s communications prototype work for geosynchronous and interplanetary amateur radio satellites to proceed.

Combined with the ARRL Foundation’s recent maximum grant of $3,000, the $14,000 in proceeds from ORI’s successful Trans-Ionospheric electronic badge fundraiser, and many deeply appreciated individual donations, a total of $51,490 was raised for Phase 1 of the Digital Multiplex Transponder research and development program.

A project that will directly and immediately benefit from this work includes the Amateur Radio Exploration (AREx) project, brought to you by Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS).

AREx is devoted to designing and building amateur radio equipment for the Lunar Orbiting Platform Gateway project. This lunar orbiting station will have open source broadband microwave amateur equipment and affordable open source ground stations. AREx is not limited to Gateway, as there are many other opportunities under consideration that can re-use all of the work.

All work completed by ORI is made available to the general public at no cost.

The Yasme Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation organized to support scientific and educational projects related to amateur radio, including DXing (long distance communication) and the introduction and promotion of amateur radio in developing countries. Yasme supports various projects relating to amateur radio, with an emphasis on developing amateur radio in emerging countries and encouraging youth participation in amateur radio.

The Yasme Foundation makes supporting grants to individuals and organizations providing or creating useful services for the amateur radio community. Regardless of originality or novelty, Yasme supports these programs in order to further the development of amateur radio around the world.

The global perspective and commitment to authentic, accessible, and sustainable amateur radio training and experience puts Yasme Foundation into the rare category of organizations that provide true and broad public benefit.

Find out more about the Yasme Foundation here:
https://www.yasme.org/

ARISS is the home for AREx. ARISS can be found on the web at
https://www.ariss.org/

JAMSAT supports AREx and has partnered with ORI to work on the Gateway Ground Station, which also directly benefits from this grant. JAMSAT can be found on the web at
https://www.jamsat.or.jp

Open Research Institute supports AREx and open source amateur radio research & development, primarily microwave.

Find ORI on the web at
https://openresearch.institute

Documentation about the Phase 1 transponder program can be found on the ORI website at the following links:

Overview:
https://openresearch.institute/2019/09/27/open-research-institute-phase-4-space-grant-application-overview/

Technical proposal:
https://openresearch.institute/2020/01/10/p4xt-digital-multiplexing-transponder-project-program-proposal/

Phase 1 statement of work can be found at the summary document linked below.

Summary:
https://openresearch.institute/2020/02/21/summary-proposal-open-research-institute-phase-1-p4xt/

Digital Multiplexing Transponder Workshop Guide and Link to Audio

DMT-workshop-mp3-guide

The document linked above is a Guide to navigating the Audio Recording of the P4XT Digital Multiplexing Transponder Workshop.

The workshop was held Sunday 9 February 2020 (3PM – 7PM) at Starter Studio’s Conference room in downtown Orlando, 4.5 miles from the HamCation venue.

A full audio recording (330MB MP3) is available at https://www.dropbox.com/s/9k065i5kqj3i49w/200209_1316.mp3?dl=0.