PCI Shortwave Receiver

payman writes "WiNRADiO Communications has just announced news of its forthcoming WR-G303i PCI based shortwave, digital radio, narrowband FM receiver. This is said to be "the world's first dedicated shortwave receiver on a PC card. It is also the first commercially available receiver where the entire final intermediate frequency stage and an all-mode demodulator are entirely executed in software, running on a personal computer." Winradio has in the past supported Linux for its products (see Linradio), and it most likely will continue to do so with the WR-G303i."

Comments

Atencion: Seis Siete Tres Siete Cero

[plimsoll]

This could be a great opportunity to further explore the fascinating world of so-called numbers stations; espionnage TX's from shadowy intelligence organizations (as if there were any other kind) all around the globe- encrypted with one-time pads and allowing agents to receive orders with nothing more than a modified walkman.

An excerpt from NPR's Lost & Found Sound:
"Eventually, if listeners dig around [the shortwave spectrum] long enough, they'll tune across voices reciting endless strings of numbers. These broadcasts have been heard for at least 40 years. The signals are powerful, but they contain no information about location of the transmitter or the intended audience. Most listeners linger for a short time, then tune away, utterly baffled."

When I discovered these myself, I found them bizarre, chilling- and intriguing. In order to get some background, I ordered a 4-CD set from Irdial recordings in the UK called The Conet Project... highly reccomended.

What is perhaps the most surprising is that the number of numbers stations boradcasting on the shortwave band are only increasing- variously attributed to the increasing sophistication of organized crime, drug cartels, terrorist/separatist organizations and an increasingly fractious global intelligence community.

Do follow the links above if this intrigues you in the slightest- and just try going back to your insular world-view afterwards; "the enemy" is out there, and he's hiding right out in the open.

Re:Anyone here a ham radio buff?

[the eric conspiracy]

ham radio buffs are a thing of the past

Ham radio hobbyists provide an important redundant channel that is extremely difficult to knock off the air. When the hurricanes and earthquakes are done, all a Ham needs is a car battery and a length of wire to make contacts all over the world. Here is an article on use of Ham radio during some problems on Mir:

http://www.hamradio-online.com/1997/jun/mircrisi s. html

And here is one on activities associated with Isadore that are in progress as I type this:

http://www.arrl.org/

There are currently about 680,000 licensed ham operators in the US.

This a large number to relegate to the past..

I bet those same geeks were the first pepple on the internet and the early online services like compuserve in the late 80s)

Hams were much more likely to run their own BBS than hang out on a service like Compuserve.

what stops an unscrupulous person from spamming it and making it unusable to everyone else

Te short answer is: The Laws of Physics.

It is possible to jam a few frequencies here and there, but to jam shortwave transmissions world-wide takes something with the power of a solar flare. That's a lot more than a few hundred megawatts.

During the cold war the Soviet Union + Warsaw Pact tried (and mostly failed) to jam transmissions like the Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, KOL Israel, Radio Tirana and the BBC to their own populations. Estimates were that they were spending about $1 billion per year, had 200 large scale jamming stations and were putting out about 1 terawatt of EMR.