Linked by the_randymon on Wed 9th Jan 2013 23:37 UTC
Anyone who has turned on a shortwave radio in the past decade knows it's a wasteland out there, to the chagrin of nostalgic old geeks like me. But this technology sector is also one poised to explode with innovation thanks to software-defined radio. From H-Online: "Software-defined radio promises to [make] the complexity in radio systems a software problem. The principle is simple and, in the ideal setup, an antenna is connected directly to analogue-to-digital converters for receiving signals and digital-to-analogue converters for transmitting them, with software running on an attached processor taking care of everything else." Your computer is about to become more useful than ever.
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Member since:2005-07-06
I don't get the idea the goal is to make this into a retro internet sent over the airwaves. I think the idea is to use advances in radio technology to design a new combo of radio transmitter and receiver, and then transmit music and talk. So, the goal isn't internet, it's radio 
just using new transmission technology instead of old fashioned amplitude modulation.
So don't hold your breath expecting video - I think they're trying to get the old world of interesting programming (news, analysis, talk, even music) distributed over the airwaves, using probably packet technology or something else digital. It's cool anyway.
And I agree, I think OSNews needs to branch out a bit.
Member since:2011-08-13
Member since:2006-04-10
I know the BBC and EU has done far more with radio than the US has. In the UK I guess everyone has DAB in their car, in the US we got junky old FM which I practically never use.
I thought it was mostly stillborn and only properly forced in BBC land. How you could introduce a digital replacement for FM and use something worse than MP3 is beyond me. Why bother?
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
Features
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Member since:
2005-07-08
The more of these off beat hardware/firmware/software articles that get posted, the more I'll stick around, its right up my street, hardware software continuum.
So one way of looking at shortwave radio is as a retro internet with new DSP hardware to make it work a whole lot better. I can see why some my be interested but I see very little bandwidth there compared to internet radio/TV. But I also think it would be incredibly easy to jam too, there are still a few countries that don't welcome open airwaves or foreign ideas, ie NK.
I know the BBC and EU has done far more with radio than the US has. In the UK I guess everyone has DAB in their car, in the US we got junky old FM which I practically never use.
I checked out the DRM site, it is nice to see the huge quality difference made possible.
As a kid we actually used a real vacuum tube wireless set with LW,MW,SW without that new fangled FM thing so I well remember SW propaganda broadcasts from the old evil empire, "Radio Prague" etc plus Radio Caroline before auntie Beeb took over.
So yes the new tech is very cool, but I'm not convinced about radio. I wonder if there is enough bandwidth to put low res TV on it instead and send TV channels over SW, probably not.
I made my own TV antenna for free over the air broadcasts so I'm painfully aware of the limits of this medium.