Software Defined Radio

A Software controlled radio is a normal radio that allows a computer to control it. (Ex: Icom 706, Kenwood TS2000, Kenwood D700, etc.) A Software defined radio actually does the final stage processing totally in software. A typical software defined radio consists of the following components:

1. wide band pass filter
2. Hardware Preamplifier
3. Hardware (down)sampler (usually quadrature sampler--> frequency generator + mixer + digital sampler)
4. (optional) hardware DSP (to cut data bandwidth to something manageable)
5. Soundcard interface (from here on, it is all software!)
6. Digital bandwith slicer (to extract an audio channel)
7. Digital noise filters (superior to any possible analog filters!)
8. Digital demodulation (AM, FM, SSB, DSB, PSK31, whatever)

See also Remote SDR

Versions available and external links

general information

• tech net SDR page
• Wikipedia:Software-defined radio
• ARRL SDR info
• GNU Radio
• Software Defined Radio Forum
• Software Radio - Cognitive Radio
• http://kc4zvw.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/software-defined-radios/
• http://f4dan.free.fr/sdr_eng.html

hardware implementations

• gnu radio wiki
• GNU Radio Hardware 2.0 (wiki)
• Grove WinRadio / LinRadio
• TAPR has several kits and pieces
• Whitebox SDR battery powered SDR based on SOIC cell phone technology
• TenTec RX320D appearing on e-bay as RX321
• FlexRadio Systems as shown at 2005 Hamcation
• SoftRock-40 version 5

  building a SoftRock-40

• http://hpsdr.org/
• http://www.hamsdr.com/
• http://www.hpsdr.com/ (kd5nwa)
• DSP-10
• http://f4dan.free.fr/sdr_eng.html
• http://makeprojects.com/Project/Software+Defined+Radio+Transceiver/2439/1#.UNUz27Yo76Q

software

• gnu radio
• SDR-Radio
• SDR#
• Airspy ADS-B
• hdsdr (windows)
• http://www.rfspace.com/RFSPACE/CuteSDR.html
• http://volodya-project.sourceforge.net/SR/sr.php
• LinRad

  http://www.nitehawk.com/sm5bsz/linuxdsp/linrad.htm

  http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/030102qex041.pdf

Hardcopy references and articles

• "Linux, Software Radio, and the Radio Amateur", QST, October 2002.

Lots of great references, good intro.

• "The DSP-10: An All-Mode 2-Meter transceiver using a DSP IF and PC-Controlled front Panel", QST, September, October, November 1999.

General

For an overview of software radio and an open source tool to use it see the GNU Radio page or the GnuRadio Wiki.

Components

• RF Micro RF2713 Quadrature Modulator/Demodulator
  • IF from 100kHz-250mhz
  • Basedband from DC to 50mhz
  • Digital LO Quadrature divider
  • 3-6V operation
• Xilinx Spartan3 FPGA
• FX2 USB 2.0 controller
  • Programmable usb controller
  • 8086 assembly
• ATSC/NTSC/BTSC/QAM decoder
  • Oren Semiconductor ATSC/QAM/NTSC Demodulator IC / OR51132
  • ATSC Baseband signal breakdown
• Programmable Canned Oscillator Phase Noise