ARRLWeb: Surfin': It’s Only Software

ARRL -- The national association for Amateur Radio

Find on this site...

Site Index

ARRL Member Login...

Quick Links...

Operating ActivitiesLicensingNews/BulletinsServicesEducationPublic ServiceSupportDonate to ARRLARRL Info

Text-only

Current Feature Articles

Nov 20 The Amateur Radio Crossword Puzzler

Nov 20 Adventure in the Arctic: VO2A Expedition to Labrador

Nov 20 Surfin': More Radio Piracy on the High Seas

Nov 16 Youth@HamRadio.Fun: Fall Magic

Nov 13 Surfin': The Real Pirate Radio

Nov 06 Surfin': Homebrewing Today

Nov 05 DX the Hard Way

Nov 02 ARRL In Action: What Have We Been Up to Lately?

Nov 01 It Seems to Us: It Doesn't Just Happen

Oct 30 Surfin': Mapping Up

ARRL Products:
Technical, Electronics, and Communications Reference
(More)

Basic Radio -- FINALLY--an introduction to radio FOR EVERYONE!--what it does and how it does it.

MFJ 20-meter CW Cub Transceiver Kit -- Now Shipping! -- Enjoy countless hours operating this tiny high performance QRP Transceiver.

ARRL's Low Power Communication -- Build and operate low-power radio gear-the QRP way! 3rd Edition.

Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering -- Now Shipping! -- The most comprehensive book on electromagnetic compatibility, including all the latest advances and developments in the field.

The ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications -- Now Shipping! -- THE standard in applied electronics and communications -- The BIGGEST Handbook EVER!

Previous: The Amateur Amateur: "Dump" Bag Next: The K7RA Solar Update

Surfin': It’s Only Software

By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
May 25, 2007

This week, check out Web sites where radio software is eliminating some radio hardware.

Visit the GNU Radio Web site to learn about radio software emulating radio hardware.

This year, the buzz at the Dayton Hamvention® was SDR (software-defined radio). At the Hamvention, there were forums that focused on SDR and a variety of vendors showed new SDRs.

According to Wikipedia, “A software-defined radio (SDR) system is a radio communication system that can tune to any frequency band and receive any modulation across a large frequency spectrum by means of programmable hardware that is controlled by software.

“An SDR performs significant amounts of signal processing in a general purpose computer or a reconfigurable piece of digital electronics. The goal of this design is to produce a radio that can receive and transmit a new form of radio protocol just by running new software.”

The new SDRs at the Hamvention were FlexRadio's FLEX-5000 and TAPR’s HPSDR (High Performance Software Defined Radio). Not at the Hamvention, but very present on the ham SDR scene are GNU Radio and AmQRP.org’s SoftRock-40.

I am on the Board of Directors of TAPR. I spent most of Hamvention Friday and Saturday manning the TAPR booth, and it seemed to me that more than half of the people visiting our booth were asking about SDR. When I wasn't manning the booth and able to prowl the rest of the Hamvention, I could not help notice the crowd at FlexRadio’s booth.

For more information on this fascinating cutting-edge technology, also check out the ARRLWeb’s Software Defined Radio and HPSDR — High Performance Software Defined Radio Web pages.

Until next time, keep on surfin’.

Editor’s note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, is currently looking for an SDR that matches his radio interests. To discuss SDRs, software, hardware and other cool stuff, send him an e-mail or add comments to his blog. By the way, every installment of Surfin’ is indexed here, so go look it up (whatever it may be).

Previous: The Amateur Amateur: "Dump" Bag

Next: The K7RA Solar Update