Call for Submissions: GNU Radio "Block Party" Articles for ARRL QEX Magazine
You are invited to contribute an article for ARRL QEX Magazine. The QEX editor Kai Siwiak (
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kai-siwiak-002123/) at ARRL's QEX Magazine (
http://www.arrl.org/qex) is open to and interested in publishing a number of articles about GNU Radio Blocks!
This may become a regular series of articles. Authors receive financial compensation for accepted contributions and make a direct and enduring contribution to increased technical expertise in the amateur radio community with their published work.
What do you need to do?
1) pick a block!
2) use the template!
3) write your amazing 1000-1500 word article!
4) submit your article! If you want it to be considered for this special category of writing, please send it to me at
w5nyv@arrl.net5) enjoy being able to teach the amateur radio world more about GNU Radio, one block at a time.
Here is the GNU Radio Block Party article template.
A. Introduction
GNU Radio is a free and open-source software development toolkit. It provides signal processing blocks that implement software radios. GNU Radio can be used with readily-available low-cost external RF hardware to create software-defined radios, or without hardware in a simulation-like environment. GNU Radio is widely used in amateur radio.
GNU Radio is used in a format called flowgraphs. These graphs are composed of functional blocks. Each of these blocks performs a specific task. Each block is connected to other blocks by inputs and/or outputs. Connections between blocks are represented on the screen as directional arrows.
Flowgraphs look very much like traditional system block diagrams. Flowgraphs can serve as a description or documentation of a radio architecture. Unlike a block diagram on a sheet of paper, GNU Radio flowgraphs operate directly on live signals, can do almost any digital signal processing, and produce a huge variety of useful signals.
B. Introduce and Describe Your Block
<Your content here!>
Introduce a block of interest to radio amateurs.
Describe the block's function in detail.
Describe an application where this block would be used.
Include any necessary theory for understanding this block.
Provide or reference an example flowgraph.
C. Writing Prompts
Use some, all, or none of the following Writing Prompts. These are suggestions to spark your creativity and are not coverage requirements.
What does this block "really" do?
Is the function "under the hood" not exactly the same as what people assume it to be?
Is this block designed for a particular type of communication or for a particular community?
What would the equivalent hardware circuit look like?
Does the block have no achievable equivalent in hardware?
What is the advantage to using a software component instead of the equivalent hardware?
Who are the primary contributors? Why did they write this block? If they had to do it over, what would they do differently?
Are there any open issues with this block? If someone wanted to help with this block, how would they contribute?
How do digital samples get into and/or out of this block?
Does this block require other blocks to work properly?
What is configurable in the block?
What things can't be changed in this block?
Are there any quirks?
Are there any "war stories" in this block's history?
Have there been any major bugs with this block?
Is there a way this block can be mis-used or create unexpected results?
Is the block computationally efficient, or not? Why?
Does the block use any notable or unusual programming or mathmatic techniques?
D. Questions? Comments? Critique? Please let me know at:
w5nyv@arrl.net-Michelle W5NYV