We are preparing for a stable release 1 at the end of summer. In preparation of this we are planning on releasing the first release candidate during the 4th of July weekend and the second sometime in late August. The lastest information can be found directly on out Github milestine tracker, https://github.com/Nuand/bladeRF/issues/milestones

The main oustanding ask for the feature release are:

• Adding flexible timestamp support directly to the library
• Finalizing XB-100 and XB-200 board support
• Completing automated (IQ and DC) calibration for the LMS

The absolutely most important thing we want to accomplish with these upcoming releases is to create an SDR that can double as a calibrated high-quality test equipment.

Lastly, the cases are now in stock and we should be caught back up on the transverter backlog sometime in the last week of this month or so. Please ensure that if you have receuved an address verification address email from us that you respond to it; orders prior to March 2014 will recive this email. Please email us at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.

After playing around with a few designs we decided to go with a screw fastened plastic injection molded design for the case.

A few days later the SLA’d 3D printed cases arrived. A frosted material really didn’t have the same effect as the see-through material in our CAD program. However the prototype did verify that the mechanical design was correct.

Fast forward another 5 weeks and our first 10 cases arrived, along with pictures of the mold itself.

We decided to use a very dense (yet clear) Poly Carbonate material to ensure cases can withstand someone sitting on them. Plastic poses one potentially massive risk to any electronic device, which is the risk of electrostatic discharge (or ESD). To ensure this would not to be a problem with our cases, the PC is coated and post-processed at the factory to make it suitable for use as cases for electronic devices.

A sufficient amount of ESD testing was performed on a statistically sufficient number of cases, and even at 30kV ESD sparks the case and the bladeRF did not seem to have any problems. Every bladeRF’s SMA, SMB, USB3, and power jack were zapped numerous times, yet not a single bladeRF suffered any sort of damage. I guess those ESD diodes and packages we scattered around the board really pay off :).

27 ESD zaps against the RX SMA port and the surrounding area yet the thing is still able to see GSM basestations moments later.

Now that we have passed ESD testing, the order for the first batch of mass produced cases has been placed. We hope to have them in stock sometime in late June.

PS: This post was written in May but was accidentally not published until June.

For Immediate  Release

YateBTS developer Legba and bladeRF creator Nuand have announced a partnership to connect 3.5 billion people worldwide with no access to a mobile connection

Contact:  David Burgess, CEO of Legba, Inc.

Website:  leg.ba

Email:  [email protected]

(Apr 30, 2014 – NEW YORK ) – The partnership brings together Legba‘s YateBTS open source software for 2.5G networks with Nuand’s bladeRF software de ned radio platform, based on Lime Microsystems‘ fully programmable RF transceiver technology. This has resulted in the release of YateBTS 3.0 providing a complete end to end solution.

The software defined radio technology builds on proven military implementations and seeks to bring the technology into affordable public mobile networks for the 3.5 billion people who currently are without any wireless connectivity.

Key Facts:

• The affordable bladeRF board has an entirely programmable FPGA and a large community of developers.  It uses Lime’s field programmable RF transceiver to deliver a simple, high performance and low cost software defined radio board.

• The partnership among Legba, Nuand and Lime Microsystems proves traditional mobile networks can be expanded and made more affordable by innovative solutions.

Supporting Quotes

“This technology redefines the development and sales model with close partnership among silicon vendors, ODMs and software developers becoming the new way of building solutions. Our collaboration shows that innovative and cost optimised wireless networks could be implemented to provide mobile coverage to countless communities that is not economically viable using the existing solutions,” Ebrahim Bushehri, CEO of Lime Microsystems.

“I am happy to announce the collaboration with the creators of bladeRF – a low-cost, open source software defined radio – and with Lime Microsystems, the developers of the highly flexible field programmable RF chip. bladeRF’s features have allowed us to integrate and fully program it in our YateBTS products.” David Burgess, CEO of Legba, Inc.

“I am very pleased to announce that Nuand, Legba and Lime Microsystems have partnered in an endeavour which enables researchers and professionals to take advantage of bladeRF within the YateBTS products. Our shared philosophies have allowed us to deliver a mature solution for mobile operators.” Robert Ghilduta, CEO of Nuand, LLC

About  Legba and SS7Ware

Legba, Inc. (www.leg.ba) provides innovative infrastructure for mobile operators.

Nuand, LLC (www.nuand.com) developed a low-cost, open source USB 3.0 software defined radio platform.

Lime Microsystems (www.limemicro.com) specialises in field programmable RF (FPRF) transceiver ICs for the next generation of wireless broadband systems.

Legal Notices

YateBTS is a trademark of Legba, Inc. bladeRF is a trademark of Nuand, Inc.

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