On 12/6/06, Mario Rossi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
GNUradio looks very interesting, but I haven't found too much documentation for very beginners (I'm not en engineer, and I've problems understanding many things behind radio and frequencies).
I think of it very much as a project still (at this point in time anyhow) mainly aimed at people who have some engineering, DSP programming, or radio experience. I guess I'm saying it's pre-beta on the whole. It isn't a turn-key like say Myth-TV (Linux based personal video recorder), but more tinker / hacker level.
It looks to me a great idea! Having one single receiver useful for all sort of signals! Instead of chasing all new standards of digital and analogue broadcast!
That's the appeal of software defined radio, using a fairly generic and flexible RF (radio frequency) hardware front-end, and doing all the information theory processing (encoding / decoding, modulating / demodulating) in software which is far cheaper / low-barrier to change.
But it looks too good to be true, since I haven't understood whether such a receiver exists. It looks one has to assemble it personally, but then again I have no idea of how to do it. And would it be good for all frequencies? What is a reasonable range for a single device?
As I suggested, it is not (in my opinion) a consumer application at this point in time. Hardware does exist, and you can purchase it (i.e. a USRP from Ettus Research), and a variety of daughterboards covering common frequencies are available. The basic USRP is good for the GNU/Radio project, the daughterboard(s) determine what frequency range(s) you can use. "Range"? Distance (transmitter/receiver distance)? or frequency range?, dynamic range? If you are looking for a software based radio receiver, I'd say something like WinRadio (/LiNradio) or the like might be more what you are looking for. <http://www.winradio.com/>.
Another question: the project http://drm.sourceforge.net looks to be a subset of GNUradio, decoding only DRM. There as well a receiver is needed. Unfortunaltely I cannot understand whether the same sort of device is required for DRM and GNUradio. Has anybody seen it?
the DReaM project is only software to decode an audio signal from a shortwave broadcast(*) signal that is DRM encoded, and outputs (typically from the speaker) the human intelligent audio content. The DRM / DReaM software would typically use an average quality shortwave receiver, such as the made by Grundig / Eton, Sangean, and Kaito. US online store: <http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/portable.html>. *) I'm only aware of DRM - Digital Radio Mondiale being used for international shortwave broadcast transmissions. It could be used for AM/MW I believe, but I don't know if that is being used anywhere. I hope that clarify things a bit. _______________________________________________ Discuss-gnuradio mailing list Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
