As far as I know, there is absolutely no problem with the new update (V1.5) of Lazy Dog software when installed on a 32-bit computer. It seems there is a solveable problem when it is installed on a 64-bit computer running Vista or Windows 7. The problem only affects transmitter operation with HDSDR. Here’s what I know so far:

A couple of days ago, I received the following email from Bob, N3FM:

I uninstalled HDSDR and lazy Dog; reinstalled HDSDR (2.15), and CFGSR; copied EXTIO_Si570.dll into the HDSDR folder; then reinstalled lazy dog new version 1.5 and confirmed the 2 files were in HDSDR folder. I installed the firmware update.

When I start HDSDR, it asks me which ExtIO to use – I select the LD1 dll, it immediately comes back with a dialog box saying (Title: Unable to load Si57… and dialog box contains only the word ‘error’. If I hit ‘ok’, then the LD1 control dialog box comes up, and works fine until I try to tell hdsdr that I have a transmitter.

I am using Win7 – 64 bit. I tried rebooting, and also turning the SDR off and back on, with no effect. I did have it working on HDSDR 2.11 and SDRsharp before the software upgrade. SDRsharp is working on receive…

The desktop PC I normally use for development and operation is a 32-bit machine, Intel CPU, running Vista. I also have an HP laptop with an AMD 64-bit processor, running Vista, which I use for portable operation. I hadn’t tested the new SW on a 64-bit machine until I heard from Bob, but when he reported a problem I installed everything on my laptop, and got results similar to his. Before I had a chance to investigate further, he sent me another email:

Pete, is this the problem?  http://pe0fko.nl/ca/

The link Bob sent me indicates that there’s a small problem with installing CFGSR and ExtIO_Si570.dll on 64-bit systems. It isn’t an insoluble problem, but it does complicate things just a bit. It wasn’t long before Bob emailed me yet again:

Evening, Pete — That appears to fix it!
Here’s what I did… Built the driver, then uninstalled it. Loaded the root certificate, then copied the libusb0.dll and libusb0.sys into the HDSDR folder. Now all is running! Transmit appears to work OK (but 20 is sorta quiet this time of evening LOL, especially with the antenna lying on the floor of the living room!). Tell your users to just copy the 2 files and don’t try actually running the program… (it generates an .inf file and a driver, may be useful to you later).

I’m still not sure what Bob meant by “built the driver”. There are drivers for libusb0 that can be downloaded, and I didn’t really want to build it from the source. I installed the root certificate with no apparent problem, then downloaded and installed libusb, and copied the .dll and .sys files to the HDSDR install folder. No luck.

A little more research turned up the following link: http://pe0fko.nl/SR-V9-Si570/

I followed the instructions under “Install the PC Driver Software” about a third of the way down the rather long page. When I had done that, plus a little fiddling around, it worked fine. I didn’t take notes while fiddling around, so I’ll have to uninstall everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING related to the LD1, HDSDR, libusb, and CFGSR) and try it again, and probably a third time, before I’ll have a repeatable procedure. I did have a Softrock to connect to the computer so it would find the DG8SAQ-I2C device to install drivers for. I don’t know yet how to install the drivers without the DG8SQ-I2C device connected, but I do have an idea.

I don’t think you’ll actually be using the drivers, but apparently ExtIO_Si570 needs to find them before it can be loaded, so they do have to be installed. I’ll post more on this when I know more, and would appreciate comments.

73 de NI9N