| What comes into your mind when you hear the words | | | | the radio from. |
| Ham Radio? Morse code, antennas and old school | | | | SDR vs. the classic radio |
| communication? For sure its not old school | | | | Understanding the three fundamental concepts we |
| communication, at least not anymore! Lately, a new | | | | can start to discover now the huge advantages of a |
| technology called SDR, "Software Defined Radio" is | | | | SDR, Software defined radio. While in classic radios, all |
| the rising star and will change Ham Radio | | | | three components where combined into one box, SDR |
| fundamentally during the upcoming years. | | | | allows us to use them independent and define them |
| In principal, a big part of the radio (that's a box | | | | flexible. There is no requirement anymore that the RF |
| containing a lot if capacitors, coils, transistors..etc) is | | | | component has to be in the same geographical |
| replaced partially by our computers which allow us to | | | | location as the User. |
| flexible change the functionality without touching the | | | | Modern technologies allow us to operate a radio from |
| soldering iron. | | | | anywhere in the world. Of course, the merit here goes |
| Three basic components | | | | also to the fast Internet who is one of the enablers of |
| When talking about radios (or any communication | | | | this technology. |
| device) we can break it down into three major | | | | Discover a new radio experience |
| components: | | | | A good example is the WebSDR receiver, located at |
| 1. The RF Component | | | | the Dutch university of Twente. On their webpage, |
| 2. The Signal Processing Component | | | | more than 100 users can listens simultaneously to a |
| 3. User Interface | | | | several hundred kHz broad spectrum of selected ham |
| The RF component transforms the high frequency | | | | bands. This unique application is just an outlook to what |
| signals, the signals which are received through your | | | | kind of applications will be possible in the future with |
| antenna into a "processing ready" format (and vice | | | | SDR. |
| versa). The Signal Processing component will shape | | | | While the RF components are already quite mature, |
| the signal as you want to have it, for example the | | | | the majority of new applications will be seen in the |
| demodulation of a filtered Morse code signal which you | | | | Signal Processing and the User Interface component |
| will then hear on your headphones. The third | | | | areas. Its definitely an exciting future and you should |
| component is the User Interface - these are the knobs, | | | | make sure to be a part of it! |
| the displays and the touch screens where you control | | | | |