SDR SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO PORTABLE
SDR SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO SOFTWARE

SDR SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO SOFTWARE

By way of a starting definition, we choose to use that of a reconfigurable radio system whose characteristics are partially or fully defined via software or firmware. The software-defined radio (SDR) has an infinite number of interpretations depending on the context for which it is designed and used. And what the Beatles said about improving oneвЂ™s nature as a human being also aptly describes the performance of SDRs: itвЂ™s getting better all the time. In this monthвЂ™s column, we review the history and future of SDRs looking in particular at GNSS SDRs. But these improvements in SDR technology extend to other uses of the radio spectrum including GNSS. I have since acquired several other SDR receivers, and the capability of these units keeps getting better and better, delighting me and my fellow radio hobbyists. Interfaced via USB to a computer and bespoke software, an SDR receiver allows one to monitor a wide swath of the radio spectrum or record it for future analysis as in-phase and quadrature components. I used the Sony receiver extensively at home and on trips overseas and heard many interesting broadcasts over the years including President GorbachevвЂ™s resignation speech live from Radio Moscow.ДЇast forward to 2013, when I purchased my first software-defined radio (SDR) receiver, a FUNcube Dongle Pro+, with frequency coverage from longwave up to the L-band.

SDR SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO PORTABLE

But on an Air Canada flight to a conference early in 1985, I spotted an advertisement in the inflight magazine for the diminutive Sony ICF-7600D portable shortwave receiver - the height of miniaturization of microprocessor-controlled receivers at the time - and I acquired one in Hong Kong in May of that year before starting a lecture tour in the PeopleвЂ™s Republic of China. With the pressures of university studies and starting to work for a living, I put my radio hobby on hold. Using a random-length antenna above my motherвЂ™s clothesline, I was able to log radio stations from more than 100 countries during my high-school days. It used one tube for the RF section and one tube for the audio amplifier. I received a Knight-Kit two-tube regenerative shortwave receiver for Christmas 1963 when I was 14. For her, it was the local AM radio stations where she could hear the latest BeatlesвЂ™ hits on her six-transistor handheld portable. I was interested in radio and so was my sister. I had a fairly normal childhood-as a nerd.

Sdr software defined radio