SDR basics
This is a talk to the Refreshing Memories conference put on by the the Chaos Computer Club e. V. (CCC), Europe’s largest association of hackers. I think it does a pretty good job of explaining SDR, although it’s not for complete beginners.
What the $%*#*@$$( is that?
Now, that panadapters have become all the rage, we’re all seeing weird things on our waterfalls. The last couple of evenings, for example, I’ve been seeing something weird down around 3520 kHz. If you’ve ever seen something weird on your waterfall, you might want to head over to the Signal Identification Guide. This wiki includes both audio and waterfall images to help you identify a signal.
Be aware that the images may not be exactly what you seen on your waterfall. At right is the wiki’s image for RTTY. RTTY does not look like that on my IC-7300. The reason is that I have my display set up differently. Even so, this is a very useful website.
DRM with only a PC
DRM, or Digital Radio Mondiale, is a digital radio standard that is supposed to be a high quality replacement for current analog radio broadcasting in the AM, HF, and FM/VHF bands. It never really caught on for many reasons, but there are some international broadcasters who have scheduled DRM broadcasts.
One of the reasons it hasn’t caught on is because you need a special DRM receiver to decode the digital transmissions. This video, however, shows how to use a PC to listen to DRM broadcasts.
Steve - W8SFC says
That RTTY display reminds me of a guitar strap I had in the 1970’s…