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Hardware

Shortwave Radio and The PC 116

Posted by Hemos from the car-54-where-are-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has an indepth guide on the Ten Tec RX-320, a shortwave radio receiver that connects to the PC and is controlled by software (both Linux and Windows). The article goes into depth on different high frequency modes, broadcast shortwave, and even a bit on ham radio and new digital modes."
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Shortwave Radio and The PC More

Shortwave Radio and The PC

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  • The Point? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lordrich ( 647355 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @06:56AM (#6148541) Homepage
    But internet radio is taking over shortwave, this is a pointless product! And besides, won't the pc cause interference with the radio?
    • Couldn't we just have a world wide wireless net if we digitize the signal and send the packets via short wave?

      Just wondering.

    • Re:The Point? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mactov ( 131709 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:14AM (#6148592) Homepage
      Whether the PC causes RF problems with reception depends on the PC. I was using a Mac alongside a ICOM receiver between 1989 and 2001 with no problem whatsoever -- from the Mac. The neighbor's microwave oven was another matter entirely. I always knew when they were defrosting stuff. I don't know about other PC's -- maybe someone else can comment on that?

      Internet radio taking over shortwave, maybe, in some ways. They really are two different media, though, with different strengths. And there are still places in the world where not that many people have access to a computer or an ISP, but they still may have an old SW set to listen to the BBC.

      (And for the romanticist, there's nothing like listening to a cricket match between Fiji and the Solomon Islands teams over Solomon Islands radio, commented in Pidgin English, by the glow of shimmering tubes!)

      • An example (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
        A friend of mine from college is currently in the Peace Corps in the South Pacific.

        She is only able to check her email around once a month or less, and the only telephone is a multi-dollar-per-minute satellite phone.

        She is never more than a day behind on world news thanks to BBC shortwave.
        • Odlly enough, there are alot or missionary workers and UN organizations that have email service because of HF packet systems. One of the commenters above says "It's good for short text messages." Yep!

          So - it isn't going to replace broadband anytime soon. (Well maybe UHF packet will ;-) but it has it's place for long haul text, etc.
      • In a simple setup: indoor aerial, regular beige box PC, cheap Taiwanese monitor - RF problems are huge.
        Even if you run a coax cable to an outdoor antenna, it still picks up interference from the nearby PC, because it is impossible to match antenna to the cable perfectly for all frequencies. LCD screen and well-shielded PC case can help a lot. Still, I haven't seen a setup without problems.
      • As I type this I have been listening to BBC world service over the internet. I have a shortwave radio too. Its really just much better sound this way. Its still fun to use the shortwave but realistically I use the computer for what I can.

    • Re:The Point? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dr_canak ( 593415 )
      Pointless? Internet radio is gonna take over shortwave? I don't think so. Not for a long time. Thought about using some mod points to mod this parent as a troll. But then figured i could simply point out that, as soon as you can get computers to the entire third world, then you can start talking about the death of shortwave as a source of news and programming.

      No doubt other technologies are developing rapidly. Actually, internet radio is just one. But shortwave is still the only way for people to hav

    • Re:The Point? (Score:2, Informative)

      by ChaoticPenguin ( 580349 )
      Anyone who says that shortwave is dead and pointless have obviously not listened to SW broadcasts coming out from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. And I challenge you to find it streamed live on the Net. Nothing beats hearing first hand (or first ear?) to propanganda. In the future, where every country and every civilization on the planet has access to the Internet, then yes, SW will be dead. But until then, SW remains the best form of receiving information (or propanganda) about places with n

    • scaling (Score:3, Informative)

      by zogger ( 617870 )
      There's absolutely no comparison (yet, in widespread useage) when it comes to scaling and cost. I can purchase commercial shortwave air time for as little as 25$ an hour side band upto around 100$ or more for full duplex from huge whopper powerful transmitters, the data can be received by millions of people. And if it's non commercial from my own rig, it's upfront hardware cost, then just some electricity cost,that's it. Now,to contrast that, go to any net broadcaster you can find,either MP3 or Real or quc

    • Re:It's still going (Score:2, Informative)

      by p51d007 ( 656414 )
      I grew up on shortwave radio from the 60's, 70's as a kid. I remember the first time I listened to one, got hooked on it, studied and passed my amateur test and got licensed. No, the PC won't cause interference, unless you have it sitting on top of your computer, the receiver is an external box. I've been hearing the death of sw/ham radio for years. Everyone has been saying ham radio is dying.....well, they said the same thing about CW (morse code), but it's still around. Plus, you think the manufacturer

      • Re:It's still going (Score:3, Insightful)

        by stevew ( 4845 )
        A couple of things here - (I'm a ham for over 25 years too, i.e. since tubes were the "hot" technology ;-) PC's CAN AND DO interfere with radios. The FCC requirements in effect today help alot, but you can still have cables, etc from the puter that cause grief.

        Also - the author states that ham radio isn't dead. I'd counter that it is indeed sick at this point. The average age of amateurs is constantly rising. There is almost NO new blood coming into the hobby. When I first got licensed, I joined a ham
    • Wel, They can get your ISP to block stuff if They can work that into a Patriot Act. Hell, your ISP can block stuff if enough customers/parents/legislators raise a ruckus about it. Or your ISP can drop your service.

      But they can't block shortwave. Even if it's from another country.
    • No it's not! Begin taken over by internet radio. Like they produced a product that would have interference? It probably in some crazy scheme has some type of cover to stop the interference. DUH

  • Icom do them, too (Score:4, Informative)

    by Gordonjcp ( 186804 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:05AM (#6148563) Homepage
    The Javaradio (http://www.javaradio.com [javaradio.com]) setup is based around the Icom PCR-100 or PCR-1000. If I recall correctly, Yaesu do one too.
    • That either Kenwood, Icom, or Yaesu have been doing PC-controlled radio receivers for a few years. Now I remember properly that it's always in the Icom ads. :)

      Icom has a LOT of neat receivers, such as their "super scanners" (Which is what I like to call their scanners that have video capability.)

  • Possible apps... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:06AM (#6148568) Journal
    1. Weather alerts - Global reach, software controllable as well. Should be ideal to get local alerts. Specially suited for /ers who spend hours in front of their PCs blissfully unaware of the weather!

    2. Terror alerts - need we say more?

    3. Service Pack alerts! the best of the lot. We could have daily bulletins, sponsored programs by virus writers, chat shows with hackers etc.

    Good stuff.

    • Re:Possible apps... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Hittite Creosote ( 535397 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:11AM (#6148580)
      1. Weather alerts

      I have a weather alert device adjacent to my computer. Despite being called a 'window', it hasn't crashed yet, although as I'm in England, I do regularly get the grey screen of dampness from it.

      • The issue here is, though the poster you replied to was being silly, there are places where a weather alert is vital. In Texas, Oklahoma, etc, they can have insane storm cells. Now, these cells will all create intense thunderstorms that'll drop hail the size of golf balls, and provide one of nature's light shows. Unfortunately, some of these cells can also spawn a tornado, and I think you know what a tornado can do to someone. Now, though both storms look pretty much the same to the casual observer, they lo

    • Re:Possible apps... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Aliencow ( 653119 )
      Yeah, why stream higher quality stuff through the Net at higher quality when you can have to mess around with more hardware, have a smaller user base, etc..
      • Where there is no TV, no cable, and no electricity, you'll still find a shortwave radio. You'll be able to find one in just about any gathering of people in the world. I think that's a little bit better than people with broadband...

    • Re:Possible apps... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Surak ( 18578 ) *
      1. Weather alerts - Global reach, software controllable as well. Should be ideal to get local alerts. Specially suited for /ers who spend hours in front of their PCs blissfully unaware of the weather!

      Two things:

      a. kweather [jhochwald.de].
      b. One word: *window* (you know, that big glass thing in the wall that let's you look outside ;)

      2. Terror alerts - need we say more?

      Yeah, because as we all know terrorists are gonna wait until the condition is orange or red before they strike! ;)

      3. Service Pack alerts! the be
    • Weather alerts and other emergency information are already being broadcast on NOAA weather radio in the VHF band. Digital coding in the signal ("SAME", Specific Area Message Encoding) allows you to filter out alerts that don't apply to your county.
    • 1. I don't think people in India are going to be interested in the weather in California, and vise-versa. There are plenty of weather information systems already (See #2).

      2. Uhh, you mean "The News"? Yes, the news is already being broadcast worldwide, and includes such information as weather and terrorism information (although I don't see the big deal, terrorism has been happening forever and there have been very few deaths because of it. Now, suddenly, everyone is convinced there is a terrorist on ev

  • Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kwelstr ( 114389 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:06AM (#6148571)
    But I always wonder if the Internet could be carried by short wave radio. I mean, if you digitize the packets and send them via short wave, couldn't you just have a world wide wireless internet?

    Just wondering, I am not an expert on this field.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)

      by Papyrus ( 226791 )
      Hams have been doing packet radio for decades.

      • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)

        by rspress ( 623984 )
        Yep, and since we were doing it over radio we had wireless networks long before the rest of the computer world caught up. Packet radio was good for email and jumping digipeaters but not very good for file transfers. TCP/IP networks were available in many areas that went a little farther than the standard ax25 networks that most hams used. Also there is a lot more than just music and news broadcasts on shortwave. Spy stations and digital diplomatic traffic are there as well as a host of other things to lis

    • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)

      by Oscar_Wilde ( 170568 )
      That's been done, it's called Packet Radio [choisser.com].

      IIRC, there is support for it in the more recent Linux Kernels (as a module).

      I've seen some small Packet Radio setups but it doesn't seem to be as popular as it could be (for reasons a packet radio nut should probably explain)
      • I'm thinking on routing the internet over short wave, to get a true world wide wireless internet.
        But I am just wondering about it. I have no idea if it could be done or not.
        • I'm thinking on routing the internet over short wave, to get a true world wide wireless internet.

          But I am just wondering about it. I have no idea if it could be done or not.

          Well, yes, it could be done but the problems you would have make this pointless. Interference from sunspots, low bandwidth, expensive equipment (for large scale/high power work). Someone with better knowledge of this sort of thing will need to flesh this out for you (I'm not an expert)

        • Packet and TCP/IP (Score:5, Informative)

          by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Monday June 09, 2003 @08:57AM (#6149127) Homepage
          TCP/IP can be routed over packet.

          Of course, the issue is "Would you want to" on HF. (aka shortwave)

          The answer is No, unless you're on some remote island in the South Pacific where there are no phone lines and satellite connections are multiple $$$ per minute, in which case a 1200 (or slower) bps connection is a godsend.

          The legal limit on channel bandwidth in most HF bands is on the order of 3-6 kHz (Enough for SSB voice). Since there's lots of noise on HF, advanced modulation schemes that allow you to stick more than 1 bps per Hertz usually don't work. Most HF data connections are 2400 bps or less. (300 bps is quite common, and currently the most popular digital mode is PSK31 at 31 bps, due to its bandwidth being narrower than Morse and having superior noise immunity to any faster data mode.)

    • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)

      by clone22 ( 252516 )
      See this Linux Journal article ca. 1995:

      http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1071

    • Re:Interesting (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I always wonder if the Internet could be carried by short wave radio.

      The inspiration for Ethernet was a packet radio network in Hawai called ALOHANET. So yes, it can be done :)
    • HAMs have been doing this for some time. You sign up for a timeslot ahead of time, and you can maybe check your e-mail while in the middle of the ocean.

      The speed of the connections is incredibly slow, and at that, it takes a lot of equipment, and work to setup.

      Really now, who would want that? People are better off with SW radios, and using that frequency for something reasonably important.

  • SW is not Dead! (Yet) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vollernurd ( 232458 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:18AM (#6148604)
    To all those who thought that SW went out with Churchill and Franklin D.: SW is not dead.

    In some countries like Africa, SW radio is the only medium that a population that might not be able to read can rely on for information/education. See hoe the success of the Clockwork radios depended on Charitable organisations using them in continents where electricity supplies were rare.

    SW radio is still the only way you can listen to radio in some places, simply because of the durability of the signal over long distances, and the relatively low cost of equipment.

    Hang on, then why the hell would I want to attach one to a PC? Surely even the pleasure of DXing doesn't get augmented with use of the PC.

    Now where's my morse-button...?
    • In some countries like Africa...

      Oh, my! When did the various countries on the continent of Africa unite to become one country! Why did no one tell me? I saw no mention of this on CNN, FOX News, anything.

    • I agree that SW is still alive and well. However, computer augmented receivers have been around for a while now. For example, to record and display what has been found graphically.

      On the other hand, SW receivers don't like PCs nearby unless they have been very well shielded.

    • Hang on, then why the hell would I want to attach one to a PC? Surely even the pleasure of DXing doesn't get augmented with use of the PC.

      Lots of reasons, but one is that SW listening conditions are changing constantly in only somewhat-predictable ways. If you are a dedicated DXer it can be both helpful and fun to exchange notes (quickly!) with other DXers.

      Used to be, that happened via print media that was always pretty out of date by the time one got hold of it, or via radio programs that one had to ha

    • Shortwave (better known as Worldband) is far from dead. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the mountains of Nicaragua from 1998-2000 and I was as addicted to SW in those days as I am to the internet today.

      In remote sites and in poor countries where the internet is still basically another planet, the radio is still a regular and important source of news and information. Shortwave has certainly decreased in importance but it's by no means dead.

      That said, there are new projects that may bring it back into v

      • That's a pretty cool idea and would certainly help against those damn sunspots.

        But the Ionosphere has its own advantages, one being that it is totally free to use. Imagine, you are not relying on a corporation's infrastructure to carry your transmissions.

        With conventional shortwave you can use relatively low cost transmitters, though where your signal actually ends up is sometimes anyone's guess.

    • Hang on, then why the hell would I want to attach one to a PC? Surely even the pleasure of DXing doesn't get augmented with use of the PC.

      Believe it or not, the radio interface -- all the switches, dials, and displays -- add a LOT to the cost of the radio. By hooking your computer up to a black box with nothing but an ON/OFF switch, you use something you already have for the interface and save a lot of money on the radio. The RX-320 would probably cost twice as much if it had all the standard dials and di

    • Just because it gives access to information does not mean it's always a good thing.

      Rewanda - A Historical Chronology [pbs.org]

      Google search: rwanda genocide extremist radio [google.com]

  • Digital SW (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09, 2003 @07:26AM (#6148628)
    A new digital standard for SW/LW/MW will officially launch this time next week, DRM [drm.org] is based upon COFDM (as per DTV in Europe, 802.11a/g etc) and uses the AAC codec at around 30kbps, it doesn't sound much but it's an amazing improvement upon analogue shortwave and will really bring it back to life again, instead of being the preserve of nutters living in huts in Montana.

    Anyway, checkout the samples [drm.org], not bad for a signal that has travelled to and from the extreme of Europe.
    • Unfortunately, I don't think they could have picked a more geek-unfriendly acronym. Unless it were named something like Radio Interphase Advanced Algorithm, or something...

  • Newer PC-controlled receivers (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @08:11AM (#6148789) Journal
    TenTec's RX-320 is a solid rig, but a bit dated. Newer receivers, such as the Icom PCR1000 [icomamerica.com], outperform the RX-320 in every way (VFO speed, frequency coverage, receive modes, sensitivity, filters, notch, etc). Of course it costs more than twice as much, but you get more than 1 Ghz additional receive coverage (100 kHz - 1.3 GHz), which allows it to be used as a scanner, and not just a SWR.

    Dan East
  • WinRadio [winradio.com] has been doing this for years, as least in a reception sense. I had one back in 1996 or so. It's a radio that either plugs in as a PCI card, or can hook up to a serial, USB, or PCMCIA slot. It's a wonderful piece of equipment. Biggest problem: Noise from your computer and/or monitor. But it's manageable, and beats those old fiddly push-button radios by a mile. It's Australian in origin, and since the American dollar is in the dumps don't count on getting one for less than $500 US or so.

  • LinRadio (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tandoori Haggis ( 662404 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @08:40AM (#6148993)
    Thanks to Hemos for the TenTec info. Check out the following sites for info on PC controlled receivers that do not suffer from internally generated noise. These guys have done a great job. http://www.linradio.com/ and http://www.winradio.com/ The g303i is the receiver to go for if you just want HF reception. Other units go to 4GHz! Some receivers are external and some internal ie they mount in your PC! http://www.winradio.com/home/g303i.htm You may recognise some of their kit from the Paris Safe House in The Bourne Identity. Note the open software development unlike better known oriental brands.
  • ..on this receiver, and the dirt on the underlying technology in Electronics and Wireless World, earlier this year. I've a list of URLs somewhere I can post for folks who are interested.
  • Thanks to Hemos and the Anonymous Reader for posting this article. I was introduced to the world of Amateur Radio late last year and took a class for (and passed) my Technician Class exam a week ago. My new callsign (KC8WVJ) showed up in the FCC database just a few days ago. I mostly use 2-meter FM voice to communicate, but this article sheds light on other ways to communicate world-wide. I for one would be interested in reading more articles of this nature. Thanks ./!

    • Glad to have you among the ranks! Shame on you for not mentioning that you wife's a ham, too! 5 WPM code is easy, and it opens up the whole world to you, literally.

      Nice website, by the way.

      73 de k4det

      • Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, my wife and I got our Tech/No Code a couple of Saturdays ago. We're going to get our 5wpm/General this fall. Taking a class along with reading the ARRL book really helps to solidify the theory. It's best to actually UNDERSTAND what you're learning, rather than memorizing the question/answer pool. The General test (35 questions) doesn't look too bad, but the Extra exam (50 questions) looks like a nightmare. :-)

        73 de kc8wvj
  • Why settle for an HF radio that's merely computer-controlled when you can make the computer the radio. Gerald Youngblood's SDR-1000 [flex-radio.com] is a full-blown Software Defined Radio (SDR) that blows away most ham rigs. The demo Gerald did at Dayton was very impressive. The best part is that if you want your radio to have a new feature, all you have to do is write the code to do it...

    --zawada

    • $500? what does it do? my only interest in radio was back when you could listen to cell phone calls cause they weren't encrypted

      what i've never been able to figure out is the attraction, so you can listen to various forms of radio from everywhere, so what? is air traffic control really that interseting? make me understand why this is worth $500 and realize i am totally ignorant of anything related to any form of ham/shortwave...

      • It's a matter of personal preference/interest. Some people find it fascinating to dig out of the muck a radio signal that started at a small transmitter halfway around the globe. Some people would rather watch paint dry.

        There's a whole world of things to listen to out there. Ships at sea, utility transmissions, weather data, radio FAX... I've mostly been into broadcast SW. I find it interesting to listen to news from various places around the world. Both the flavor of the local news and their spin on
  • I haven't been able to find anything interesting on shortwave. It's neat to be able to hear stations from all over the world, but that novelty wears out pretty quick. All I hear are religious and non-English shows. Are all the good shows non-English? Dang it, another $200 bucks down the toilet. Maybe I can buy a few more and make a beowulf cluster...
    • The best thing IMHO about shortwave bands, IMHO isn't listening to them but it is transmitting on the ham bands. Although you need a license, any geek worth his salt should be able to pass the first license exam after reading the book (ARRL's "Now You're Talking") through once. Thereafter you have license to transmit on a few local frequencies. However with technologies like echolink (repetares linking, often over microwave or radio wave) or IRLP (Internet Radio Linking Project (linux based)) communicati

    • Re:What's Good on Shortwave? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Compared to what we can do in this Google Age, it is harder to find good stuff on SW. But that doesn't mean it's not there.

      One of the best ways to get started is the book "Passport To World Band Radio" with this book you can tune in to right frequency at the right time which is important. I could never get a station until I got this book. Highly recommended. [ http://www.passband.com [passband.com]]

      The BBC World Service has some great programs and other stations for English programming include Deutsche Welle, Radio Nethe

    • I haven't been able to find anything interesting on shortwave. It's neat to be able to hear stations from all over the world, but that novelty wears out pretty quick. All I hear are religious and non-English shows. Are all the good shows non-English? Dang it, another $200 bucks down the toilet. Maybe I can buy a few more and make a beowulf cluster...

      You just need to look a little harder. There is lots of Really Neat Stuff on shortwave. My favourites remain the BBC, Radio

      • Good work, spaceyhackerlady, but I'm afraid the original post has a point.

        During the days of the Cold War, every country with a political axe to grind had English language transmissions to North America.

        With the demise of the Evil Empire (and other changes - South Africa no longer has a NA English service) many of these stations folded up, cut their hours, or dropped their power.

        The ones that are left have been dropping out, due to a perceived lack of interest in short wave by USAians and the cost sav

  • Clear Channel (Score:3, Funny)

    by nightsweat ( 604367 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @10:09AM (#6149750)
    The bad news is if these leads to a shortwave resurgence Clear Channel will buy up all the shortwave stations so they can broadcast crap music to the ends of the Earth.
    • The bad news is if these leads to a shortwave resurgence Clear Channel will buy up all the shortwave stations so they can broadcast crap music to the ends of the Earth.
      Well I don't know if that would be any worse what we have now. Except for the VOA, and WWV time signals, just about the only SW stations broadcasting from the US right now are a bunch of evangelist Christian stations.
      Doesn't present a very well-balanced view of America.
      At least a bunch of Clear Channel owned music stations would giv
  • My laptop works fine as a radio without this. Why, I can just plug in these speakers and pick up a local country station using my laptop as an antenna! Unfortunately, the frequency isn't quite right, and there's no way to control the volume, so I'm stuck listening to staticy country music whenever my speakers are plugged in.
  • OK, first of all let's define SW. For the sake of this post I'll consider SW to include the 6 Meter HAM band (about 50 MHz) and lower. Yes, it would be possible to reallocate the frequency plans so that a few, high-bandwidth (for this I'm only saying a couple of Mbps) internet routers would exist. However this would tie up so much of the available radio spectrum that most other SW would be unable to function. As I personaly think being to communicate world events to third world contries is more important than giving a single third world contriy e-mail. It probably isn't feasable.

    However, if you use the UHF, VHF, and microwave bands. (WiFi btw is basicly just what we're already talking about on the microwave bands) then a lot more spectrum opens up. The problem with these bands is they do not skip the way the SW bands do so cannot cross long distances. Your maximum range is about 10% beyond the horizon. However, if you stratigicly placed routers/repeaters over a country, you might be able to give that entire country a wireless computer network, just don't do peer-to-peer filesharing or other high bandwidth tasks on it please. Interfearence could be partial overcome by using many, many different bands so that traffic could be spread out over 20-50 different frequencies or so.

    73
    KG4WWN

  • Anybody built a short-wave array antenna?
    • Never built any kind of receiving array antenna. Usually long wire is good enough. Looping the wire into a horizontal loop can help make it more omni-directional.

      Sometimes phased arrays are used for getting higher gain and directionality. These are usually beam type yagi antennas. For higher frequencies, the antennas may be side by side on a single boom, for lower (hf) frequencies, the beams may be stacked vertically, one above the other. Note that the effects serve for both receive and transmit.
    • Yes, it's pretty easy to build shortwave antennas. You can make simple ones out of wire (like a dipole or longwire) which work well but aren't very directional. You can move up to more complex antennas and, other than construction details, they're easy to build out of tubing or wire. Of course, making one that works over a wide frequency range is more difficult, and would require a log periodic antenna; with enough space, you could build a log periodic to cover 3-30 MHz without too much trouble.

      If not h
  • Take a look at this - http://www.icomamerica.com/brochures/IC-7800_pre- r elease.pdf Ok so its not just a radio, its a transciever for amateur radio operators, but omg look at this thing, 7" TFT display, usb and VGA out (you can operate the radio with keyboard/mouse/monitor WITHOUT the pc!) - compact flash slot to store settings and digital transmissions, DUAL recievers, the list goes on and on.

    In any case, expect to pay $5000 and be a licences amateur radio operator to enjoy it. I just wanted to link to t

  • Day of the dead. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Crusty Oldman ( 249835 ) on Monday June 09, 2003 @12:20PM (#6151295)

    Two things that are certainly NOT dead: Shortwave and BSD. Visit the page at: DSP radio for LINUX on Intel platforms [nitehawk.com]

    It's a beautifully documented, state of the art, software-defined, digital signal processor. It's downloadable and it's free! (Yeah, I know that Linux is not BSD, and vice versa. But this radio runs under both. Okay?)

  • Thats another great radio station. Have grown up on staple of BBC, VoA, Radio Australia and (what was then) Radio Moscow during childhood in India. Didn't understand communist/capitalist propoganda back then, but the Russian english accept sure was closer to Americal accent than British. Australian accent was, well Australian. Also heard bits of Dueshe Welle.

    Remember waking up at nights to listen to brtish top 20 charts on BBC, and Billboard top 10 on VoA. VoA was hosted by Ray macdonald (if I remember cor
  • What no transmit!? How are we supposed to troll then?
  • I haven't used shortwave for years, but I'd love to have it again in a handy portable version (for travel in Africa) that could be connected to the computer (for recording at home)...

    I've done a quick search for this, but not found anything. And, since I've been out of the loop for so long, I don't even know what companies are respected and recommended. Any /. Hams out there have some tips for me?
    • I don't think one radio is going to fill your needs. The smaller radios that are easy to travel with aren't likely to have computer interfaces. Those with computer interfaces are likely to be a pain when you travel. The RX-320 mentioned in the article isn't physically large, but you do need the computer to make it work.

      Depending on what you're trying to listen to in Africa, you could probably get by with a fairly cheap portable. The major broadcasters tend to send some pretty powerful signals in that d
  • Granted, you can do this with any audio source, but since my rx-320 is already connected to my computer, I'll use it as an example.

    Using Winamp and the Shoutcast plugin, I can stream AM broadcast programming over shoutcast and the internet. This is very nice for my sister and her boyfriend who are big area sports fans (Big City USA), but obviously can't listen to the games on radio (as they live in germany). I simply setup the radio during a game, and they can listen to their heart's content. Like i sai
  • My favorite is the Ten-Tec Pegasus. Why? Because you can receive AND TRANSMIT (with appropropriate Ham license) on all the frequencies using your computer and the interface box. Heck, they even include source code! The product name is "Pegasus". Check it out: http://www.tentec.com/TT550.htm
  • I've been a shortwave listener on and off for years now. I moved to a new home about two years ago and shortwave reception kind of fell by the wayside, my radio broke in the move.

    I'd like to see about getting one of these cool radios and throw up an antenna but I refuse to use any windows stuff in my house. Does the company have a version of Linux??

  • Is there a Text-to-Morse realtime converter? So we can do "Messaging"? Now just pop over to systran [systransoft.com] or babel fish [altavista.com] and hook in the automatic translation services between your text and the traslation to morse code... I think I have the recipe for a disaster or a comedy. I should sell this idea to Hollywood; Hacker in Pacoima starts Panic in Kinshasa!

    When lightning hits your antenna, you could lose your SW radio. Your computer, however, is (or should be) more expensive. Of course modem lines pose a sim

  • You can try this radio out by visiting N2JEU's website [ralabs.com] and clicking the link [ralabs.com] for the web-controlled Ten-Tec.

    Requires Real Audio to listen in. Plenty of links to established programing for those who don't know which frequencies to pick as well.

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