I don’t have one, I may never have one, as I am “old-fashioned”. I say that because I love the knobs, dials, settings, controls, etc of a physical radio. Yes in the SDR you have the same things but they are on the monitor screen. I like that idea and have nothing against it, I just prefer, at present, to have the radio a separate controllable unit. Note I said at present, as with all things and especially with my interest in technology, new stuff tends to take over my old-fashioned ways sooner or later. – WD0AJG
What comes into your mind when you hear the words Ham Radio? Morse code, antennas and old school communication? For sure its not old school communication, at least not anymore! Lately, a new technology called SDR, “Software Defined Radio” is the rising star and will change Ham Radio fundamentally during the upcoming years.
In principal, a big part of the radio (that’s a box containing a lot if capacitors, coils, transistors..etc) is replaced partially by our computers which allow us to flexible change the functionality without touching the soldering iron.
Three basic components
When talking about radios (or any communication device) we can break it down into three major components:
1. The RF Component
2. The Signal Processing Component
3. User Interface
The RF component transforms the high frequency signals, the signals which are received through your antenna into a “processing ready” format (and vice versa). The Signal Processing component will shape the signal as you want to have it, for example the demodulation of a filtered Morse code signal which you will then hear on your headphones. The third component is the User Interface – these are the knobs, the displays and the touch screens where you control the radio from.
SDR vs. the classic radio
Understanding the three fundamental concepts we can start to discover now the huge advantages of a SDR, Software defined radio. While in classic radios, all three components where combined into one box, SDR allows us to use them independent and define them flexible. There is no requirement anymore that the RF component has to be in the same geographical location as the User.
Modern technologies allow us to operate a radio from anywhere in the world. Of course, the merit here goes also to the fast Internet who is one of the enablers of this technology.
Discover a new radio experience
A good example is the WebSDR receiver, located at the Dutch university of Twente. On their webpage, more than 100 users can listens simultaneously to a several hundred kHz broad spectrum of selected ham bands. This unique application is just an outlook to what kind of applications will be possible in the future with SDR.
While the RF components are already quite mature, the majority of new applications will be seen in the Signal Processing and the User Interface component areas. Its definitely an exciting future and you should make sure to be a part of it!
by Tobias, DH1TW
http://www.dh1tw.de
Do you want to learn more about SDR? Are you eager to understand to full range of this new technology?
Learn from Tobias, BSc and enthusiastic Ham who has dedicated himself to make SDR more understandable and promote it within and beyond the Ham-sphere. Join him – and visit his SDR website!
Author: Tobias Wellnitz
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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