DATV-Express Tx Board Overview

9/27/17 Notice: DATV-Express boards are not available. If you still want a board, send a message to the DATV-Express forum and we will put your name on the list of those wanting boards. If enough people want boards, we may consider making another production run.

It had been a long, slow 3 year process developing a quality state-of-the-art digital ATV transmitter board. The DATV-Express project team announced on 2014-02-01 that the software was now ready for production release and the boards could be ordered via PayPal on the PURCHASE page of this web site.

The initial world-wide sales of DATV-Express boards have gone well…and rather smoothly. Art WA8RMC received a second batch of production boards at the end of December 2014.

2016-11-01 Update

DATV-Express v1.23 software now can run on Windows Operating System (32-bit or 64-bit OS). Charles G4GUO was able to correct the last reported problem for DVB-S2 protocol and has released v1.23 software for Windows. Also, an experimental set of coding for DVB-T protocol (2 MHz and 1 MHz channel-bandwidths only) was included in that Windows software release.

Block Diagram for v1.23 DVB-S — **Block Diagram for v1.23 using WINDOWS OS with DATV-Express set-up for DVB-S protocol. The DVB-S encoding occurs inside the FPGA.**

Block Diagram for v1.23 DVB-S2 — **Block Diagram for v1.23 running DVB-S2 protocol. Both the CODECs and the DVB-S2 protocol encoding are run on the Windows PC because the FPGA is not large enough.**

2015-01-01 Update — Reduced-Bandwidth DVB-S on 146 MHz

Charles G4GUO has been working on adding a new mode to the DATV-Express software: a Reduced-Bandwidth DVB-S Digital-ATV (RB-DATV) signal for the new 146 MHz band in UK. The goal is to start up some DATV activity on the UK's newly opened 146 MHz band using very low Symbol Rates around 0.300–0.333 MSymb/sec to produce a small DATV bandwidth around 0.5 MHz centered on 146.5 MHz.

Narrow-BW DVB-S signal on 146.5 MHz — **Narrow-BW DVB-S signal produced by DATV-Express exciter board on 146.5 MHz with SR = 333 KSymb/s. The frequency span on the Spectrum Analyzer is 1 MHz wide.**

2014 Distribution — Boards Shipped Worldwide

Art WA8RMC received a new production batch of new DATV-Express hardware boards just before Christmas 2014. Boards shipped to the following countries in 2014:

Australia (9%)
Belgium (3%)
Brazil (1%)
Chile (1%)
Denmark (1%)
France (2%)
Germany (6%)
Italy (1%)
Japan (7%)
Netherlands (4%)
Norway (1%)
Spain (1%)
Sweden (1%)
Switzerland (1%)
United Kingdom (9%)
United States (51%)

ODROID Development

Ken W6HHC has been evaluating using the Hardkernel ODROID-U3 to run the DATV-Express software on an ARM platform. The ODROID allows a very compact DATV transmitter setup.

ODROID-U3 Block Diagram — ODROID-U3 system block diagram

ODROID + Tutioune setup by W6HHC — ODROID + Tutioune complete DATV station by W6HHC

MK802iv Android Stick Development

The RikoMagic MK802iv Android stick was evaluated as an ultra-compact host for the DATV-Express board, targeting minimal-power portable DATV operation.

MK802iv Block Diagram — MK802iv + DATV-Express block diagram (DVB-S, draft 04)

Raspberry Pi Development

Work was also done to port the DATV-Express software to the Raspberry Pi platform, enabling a very low cost self-contained DATV transmitter.

Raspberry Pi development phase 3 — Raspberry Pi development — phase 3

DVB-T Progress

DVB-T FFT spectrum by G4GUO — DVB-T FFT spectrum progress by G4GUO

G4GUO unwanted sideband suppression — Unwanted sideband suppression improvements by G4GUO

For full technical specifications, see the DATV Tx Specs page. Downloads and user guides are on the Downloads page.