[Bradford] A cheap USB Software Defined Radio

[Brian A]

RTL-SDR - A cheap  USB Software Defined Radio

Features:

    Freeview (not seen any evidence that anyone has this working in Linux)
    FM radio,
    DAB radio,
    PVR hard-disk recorder ( I suspect that this feature will be with
Windows Software),
    Aircraft transponder tracking,
    SDR (Software Defined radio).

I heard about this on the FrequencyCast podcast, so I followed up the show
notes here.
http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/cast86.html
That also gives a link to Amazon where you can buy it for £9.95 with Free
delivery. It includes a remote control and a simple aerial.

I wondered if this would work on Linux. It seems that it does. I found this
website:
http://www.rtlsdr.org/softwarelinux

Then I  wondered if it could receive DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale). I
discovered that it does do DRM. I've wanted to play with a DRM receiver
this for years but I could never justify the cost of a receiver and I
didn't want to mess about building one.
Here is a YouTube video (I think it's the Windows software that is being
used).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3I9lWjvsQw

The advantage of DRM is that it can use bands like LW, MW & SW. The sound
quality is an improvement the standard AM transmissions, of which we are
all familiar. It can be in stereo to and can transmit metadata.

Anyway, I've ordered one. Delivery is 7-23 days.


Brian
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/bradford/attachments/20130402/d605203f/attachment.html>