Let's Grok!

Simon Brown • April 23, 2025

Great For Images

Use in SDR Software

I wanted a startup image to display in SDR Television. While sites such as Deviantart.com have many, many different images, I decided none we what I wanted. A recent posting on the BATC website used Grok for repeater images, until I saw this post I had never heard of Grok!


Here are the images I have created with Grok, the only limitation is my explaining to Grok what I want to see. I find Grok to be much better than ChatGPT but that's probably the user :) .


What's not to like? It's free. I'll definitely be using Grok in the future.

Background

Grok is a multimodal AI model developed by xAI, designed to handle both text and image generation tasks. The most recent version, Grok 3, is significantly more powerful than its predecessors, capable of understanding and generating high-quality, photorealistic images from text prompts. It can also perform basic image editing, such as adding objects or applying artistic effects, and it incorporates features like step-by-step reasoning and error detection to improve output quality[1][6][3].


Is Grok Good for Image Creation?

Strengths:

  • Grok 3 produces high-quality, photorealistic images that closely match user prompts, outperforming some competitors like ChatGPT in terms of realism and prompt accuracy[1][2][6].
  • It can render precise visual details, including real-world entities, text, logos, and realistic human portraits[3][8].
  • Grok is capable of some photo editing tasks, such as adding objects or applying stylistic effects, making it versatile for both image creation and basic editing[2][5].
  • The platform is accessible and fast, with a user-friendly interface available on X (formerly Twitter) and a dedicated website[6].


Limitations:

  • While Grok's image editing features are impressive for casual use, they are not yet a replacement for professional tools like Photoshop. The results can sometimes appear artificial or lack fine detail, especially in complex edits or artistic transformations[5].
  • Some users note that Grok's image quality, while strong, may not always reach the highest standards set by specialized tools like Midjourney for certain styles or complex compositions[7].
  • There are occasional anatomical inaccuracies and limitations in generating complex poses or highly detailed illustrations[7].


Conclusion

Grok is a robust and accessible AI tool for image creation, excelling at generating realistic, prompt-specific visuals and basic edits. While not yet a full substitute for professional editing software, it is highly effective for most casual and creative image generation needs, and it stands out for its speed, versatility, and relatively minimal content restrictions[1][2][5][6].


Citations:

[1] https://www.cyberlink.com/blog/photo-editing-tips/3514/grok3-image-generator

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1huf97b/how_and_why_grok_is_much_much_better_than_chatgpt/

[3] https://x.ai/news/grok-image-generation-release

[4] https://www.pocket-lint.com/x-grok-vs-dall-e-image-generator/

[5] https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/i-tried-groks-new-ai-image-editing-features-theyre-fun-but-wont-replace-photoshop-any-time-soon

[6] https://generativeai.pub/grok-3-ai-image-generator-is-it-any-good-dedea0a7b04a

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imIbb2CougY

[8] https://x.ai/blog/grok-image-generation-release

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Text created by Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/

By Simon Brown August 27, 2026
August 27th, 2026 Default Audio Device When changing the default audio device selection in Windows, SDR Console was following the change but not reapplying the latest volume change. Example: I start playback, adjust the volume, then after a while enable my Bluetooth speaker an go outside. When the speaker is enabled SDR Console switches but didn't apply the change in volume. RDS processing AGC replaced with normalisation, Hilbert filter redesigned. Shouldn't make much difference. MIDI Startup I believe I have found the cause of the slow start of SDR Console. As part of the SDR Console startup I always call midiInGetNumDevs() to get the number of attached MIDI devices, even if the user hasn't enabled MIDI. At some stage in 2026 Microsoft introduced a bug where the first call to midiInGetNumDevs() after starting the computer results in blocking all asynchronous activity if there are no MIDI devices connected. If there are MIDI devices connected then it returns after ~100ms. I now only call midiInGetNumDevs() on startup if there are user definitions. Some programs are experiencing even worse behaviour. There should be a Windows update soon with a fix, but for now the kit below should resolve this problem in 99% of cases. Downloads Download beta kits here .
By Simon Brown August 26, 2026
QO-100 Footprints
By Simon Brown August 26, 2026
SDR Television v1.1.4 User Interface Rearranged ribbon bar, added Forward Error Correction (FEC) to the Home panel. Receiver Currently trying to improve LDPC decoding for low SNR. Part of this work involves reducing CPU load in the LDPC decoder. Planning to add advanced decoding in v1.1.5. Changed the list of FEC / LDPC algorithms, removing min-sum and min-sum correction. Optimised offset min-sum algorithm to reduce CPU load. Optimised Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) processing. Added sum-product. Corrected LLR soft scaling for QPSK. Changed default RRC filter length to 12 symbols, previous value of 30 was too long. Updated Feed-Forward AGC with a design from CoPilot. Optimised Gardner TED RRC filter length, now 25 taps. Increased the receive RRC filter rolloff factor by 25% to capture more energy with weak signals. Reset LDPC after 1 second of inactivity. FEC - LDPC There are now two LDPC algorithms, Offset min-sum, and Sum-product. Sum-product is more sensitive than offset min-sum but currently doesn't work at all for FEC rates lower than 1/2 (1/4, 1/3 and 2/5). When sum-product is selected and the rate is lower than 1/2 then offset min-sum is used. The default damping settings for sum-product are shown below.  The aim is to work on sum-product with the help of ChatGPT in 2027 to get the maximum possible sensitivity. Downloads are at the bottom of this page.
By Simon Brown July 27, 2026
July 26th, 2026 Reuter RSR200B Added initial support. Fobos Finalised support for Fobos SDR, only the Agile firmware is supported. Some early Fobos SDR units had HF2 and HF1 swapped on the case printing. FFT When using NVIDIA CUDA for the FFT the returned buffers now use memory from the heap rather than pinned memory (*). Reduced the CPU load in the FFT Helper DLL. The data from the FFT (CUDA, IPP, OpenCL) is processed to match the display DIPs. When running Broadcast-FM with x4 resolution there were 550 FFT bins per display pixel (DIP). These 550 bins were averaged which takes quite some processing, especially when running a matrix display with many receivers enabled. I now down-sample the bins to a maximum of (about) 32 which doesn't affect the display or any DSP but does reduce the CPU. Frequency Database Loading of the frequency database into memory-mapped backing now much faster. Pluto TX Doppler support for Pluto / LibreSDR. Have tested this by adding debug info, seems OK 🙂 . RDS Added variable font size in the RDS editor window. Forced uppercase of PS text in the RDS Editor removed. Change to RDS Logfile updates while the editor is open & visible. Updates are now allowed, previously not so. Recordings Fixed font size error in the playback, navigation window (was incorrect logic). When starting the video recorder a sanity check makes sure the selected folder exists and is accessible. Satellite Satellite definition file format has changed, no need to update your settings but support for the new OMM (.xml) format is included. I'm hosting satellite data on my (new) Akamai server, these is currently a cache of the Celestrak data. I'll add a web page soon which explains what's been happening. Transmit Audio mute is now a per-profile setting. Other Fixed an error opening the matrix display while the SDR was already started. Crash when selecting "Configure" from the Select Radio window fixed. Does not create an error when the graphics driver restarts.
By Simon Brown July 10, 2026
SDR Television v1.1.3 User Interface Fixed erroneous cursor flicker in Settings help text and Receive, Transmit panes. Fixed error in the spectrum squelch logic. Minor fix/improvement in QPSK LUT lookup for low values. Receiver Use highest possible quality decimation for symbol rates of 333ksps and lower. Added optional Doppler correction for LEO/MEO satellites such as MARMOTsat (July 2026). This will most probably be tweaked when the DVB-S2 transmissions started. Downloads are at the bottom of this page.
By Simon Brown June 12, 2026
SDR Television v1.1.2 June 12th, 2026: Add option to disable audio, thus making more bits available for video, this is for use in DATV contests. Note: 66 ksps sample rate is still experimental, will be improved. Downloads are at the bottom of this page. 
By Simon Brown June 9, 2026
SDR Television v1.1.1 June 9th, 2026: Fixes a fatal bug in the Settings, Camera page. Downloads are at the bottom of this page.
By Simon Brown May 23, 2026
Version 1.6.2 This release fixes two bugs in the new DX Spot feature. The spot age logic incorrectly affected spot display. When the map was zoomed, station markers off the map would be displayed at the top left (0, 0).  Downloads are on the World Map page . Version 1.6.1 This release fixes two fatal bugs in the new DX Spot feature. When the graphics engine is restarted, resources are correctly released. Fixed a resource leak when processing the MoseMove logic. Downloads are on the World Map page . Version 1.6 This release adds the display of DX Spots. Display spots are submitted to PSK Reporter which in turn are relayed by a MQTT Broker running on a high performance Akamia node. Spot Format Each spot consists of these fields: Sequence Frequency Band Mode Signal level Time stamp Sending station call, square, country Receiving station call, square, country Note: The country is the ADIF country. Spots are displayed as they arrive, currently no on-demand database. Bandwidth To reduce bandwidth from the broker, filtering is required for 80m up to and including 15m. Filtering requires at least one field below to be set in a definition: Receiver callsign, square or country. Sender callsign, square or country. Without filtering the bandwith from the broker could be excessive. For LF and VHF+ no filtering is required due to the lower number of spots sent on these bands. In a later version the bandwidth restriction may be reduced.
By Simon Brown May 21, 2026
Version 1.6.1 This release fixes two fatal bugs in the new DX Spot feature. When the graphics engine is restarted, resources are correctly released. Fixed a resource leak when processing the MoseMove logic.  Downloads are on the World Map page . Version 1.6 This release adds the display of DX Spots. Display spots are submitted to PSK Reporter which in turn are relayed by a MQTT Broker running on a high performance Akamia node. Spot Format Each spot consists of these fields: Sequence Frequency Band Mode Signal level Time stamp Sending station call, square, country Receiving station call, square, country Note: The country is the ADIF country. Spots are displayed as they arrive, currently no on-demand database. Bandwidth To reduce bandwidth from the broker, filtering is required for 80m up to and including 15m. Filtering requires at least one field below to be set in a definition: Receiver callsign, square or country. Sender callsign, square or country. Without filtering the bandwith from the broker could be excessive. For LF and VHF+ no filtering is required due to the lower number of spots sent on these bands. In a later version the bandwidth restriction may be reduced.