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Shortwave Radio and The PC
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."
But internet radio is taking over shortwave, this is a pointless product! And besides, won't the pc cause interference with the radio?
The Javaradio (http://www.javaradio.com) setup is based around the Icom PCR-100 or PCR-1000. If I recall correctly, Yaesu do one too.
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.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
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.
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
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...?
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Amateur radio support (aka AX.25) is already present in the Linux kernel and has been for some time.
My journal has hot
A new digital standard for SW/LW/MW will officially launch this time next week, DRM 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, not bad for a signal that has travelled to and from the extreme of Europe.
Yeah I can imagine being on the net at midnight, downloading stuff from England at 0.01bit second, and then bam, it drops at 0 because of the sun... And screaming and crying...WHY you damn sun ? Why did you have to show up again??
My favourite shortwave phenomenon was always the numbers stations. Where else can you listen to real-life spy messages, even if there's not a hope in hell you'll ever be able to decode them?
As I recall there was always a ton of mysterious signals on shortwave - wierd humming stations, modem-ish tone stations (in the 70's)and all sorts of strange, intelligent-sounding clicks and pops. Shortwave is a peculiar little world.
Primarily because its inexpensive and effective.
The BBC World Service, Deutsche Welles and a host of other national services give a good world opinion on the state of affairs, which seems to contrast with local news during periods of heightened global tension.
Its also fun to listen to the angry broadcasts of small angry countries like Cuba and NK, although the hey-dey for this kind of rhetoric was the cold war.
Now whether or not a PC is the most effective way to listen to shortwave is debatable, but the value of shortwave is not. For $250-300 you can get an excellent portable shortwave radio that will entertain you far longer than the latest hot video card.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
A world wide wireless internet cannot be censor.
Yes it can, just create a lot of interference.
Its not even that hard to do (when you consider that its governments that might want to do so).
You might also like to do a bit of research into what sunspot activity does to short wave radio transmission.
TenTec's RX-320 is a solid rig, but a bit dated. Newer receivers, such as the Icom PCR1000, 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
Better known as 318230.
Sure, you can even have Internet over Carrier Pigeon, just don't expect it to perform very well! Much more interesting is Shortwave Radio over the Internet.
When I played around w/ Packet Radio there were a lot of problems, collisions, weak transmitters come and go, the retries and lag time is tremendous - the buzz at the time was: don't expect to be able to d/l PacMan video games using Packet! Whats the max packet baud rate these days? 9600? On HF it's even lower.
At work I can ping a remote site and get a response in about 70 milliseconds, going thru about 20 routers. Packet radio can't touch that.
Look into PSK31, it's an interesting active mode these days for point-to-point qso's, an HF chat room if you will.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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.
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
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.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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 ./!
Why settle for an HF radio that's merely computer-controlled when you can make the computer the radio. Gerald Youngblood's SDR-1000 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
In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster imagines you!
I had the same problems with packet that you mentioned. I was doing 1200 bps on the 2m band. It was pretty much useless for anything beyond quickie text messages. I heard about people doing 110 bps on shortwave. The ability of shortwave signals to bounce off the ionosphere was much more useful before we had all these communications satellites and global fiber optic networks.
I don't think we will ever see the stability or bandwidth to make shortwave support anything that geeks would consider useful. Ham satellites are a little more promising. If we had a Wifi via Ham satellite, now THAT would be fun.
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 quciktime, etc, pick any of those,now see what a million streams at even very, very low bit rates (say 16kbps-vocal, talk radio) cost. Go ahead, check it out. Now try it at 128kbps(somewhat decent music quality).
Granted, shortwave hardly ever has that sort of high fidelity quality associated with it, but, it works for inside the parameters for what it's designed for, no way does the ole intarweb come close yet. It has potential, but it ain't there yet. Technically it's possible, cost wise it's just way out of sight. I know there are peer to peer streaming technologies, I have played around with one of them (streamer), but it's very far from even say the level of acceptance of OGG as a generic format standard, ie, "real darn low". I would like there to be more interest and development in that sort of project, but most people only want a clear channel experience, or to download mp3 files..
Shortwave is still most useful, as well as radio in general. The main reason is-it works, doesn't require anything in the way of outside infrastructre to work and reach theoretical millions. Ain't no wirez in the middle anyplace absolutely positively needed, and receivers are as cheap as under 50 dollars new.
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 manufacturers of amateur radio gear are in a money loosing business? Doubt it.....every few months I get a catalog with all the new gear....they build it, people are buying it.
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 major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
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
Little Brother, watching the watchers
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 club called the West Valley ARC (West San Fernando Valley) and the average age of the members was perhaps 20. Unfortunately, when I go to a ham club meeting, all I see is folks older than myself..and I'm an OLD FART! (For those not in the know, Old Fart is a technical term...means ancient as the hills).
The Internet and todays communications technology has taken all the magic out of ham radio. I don't see the genie being put back in the bottle easily either.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Two things that are certainly NOT dead: Shortwave and BSD. Visit the page at: DSP radio for LINUX on Intel platforms
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 correctly) who got married to a Calcutta girl. Then cam MTV which destroyed the snob-value of tracking charts
DXing is as addictive as Slashdot.
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 said, I know you can do this with any audio source, but the ten-tec is a nice solution, and another example of the fun you can have with a radio attached to a p.c.
And yes i know all about the "illegal to rebroadcast or retransmit..." stuff they announce before a broadcast. I limit the connected users to "1", disguise the channel as something irrelevant, and assume the liklihood of it being picked up by anyone other than my sis to be pretty small.
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