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Universal Software Radio Peripheral From GnuRadio

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fun-toys-for-all dept.

The Universal Software Radio Peripheral for GNURadio has now gone into production and is available for purchase for $450. It used to be insanely expensive to acquire this technical equipment. Now the price has dropped by two orders of magnitude, to something about as expensive as a high-end graphics card. How long will it be till it's labeled a terrorist tool and banned?

17 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. What's it do? by Darth+Muffin · · Score: 4, Insightful
    For those of us who aren't up on our RF TLAs, can someone describe, in english, WTF this thing does?

    Neither of the links provided are much help.

    --
    Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
    1. Re:What's it do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      A quick search on google revealed what this thing is.. Basically it allows you to build radio receiving equipement using software instead of traditional hardware (resistors, capacitors, transistors etc..). To quote something I just read 'getting code closer to the antenna'. Interesting idea cause it means you could theoretically write a receiver to decode digital signals (like TV) without paying for it? (Ok, perhaps a little un-realistic at the moment but this is the basic idea).

    2. Re:What's it do? by plcurechax · · Score: 4, Informative

      Basically it allows you to build radio receiving equipement using software instead of traditional hardware (resistors, capacitors, transistors etc..).

      Partial true, it does not eliminate, but reduces the the electronics used by do as much of the decoding (demodulation, etc.) of the RF signa l in programming hardware (FPGA) and in software (GNU Radio code itself). You still need a RF front-end typically for VHF ~100 MHz and higher (microwave signals a la Wi-Fi, GPS, DSS TV, etc.) and hardware like the USRP.

      ould theoretically write a receiver to decode digital signals (like TV) without paying for it?

      You can legally receive signals in the US, you cannot legally bypass copyright security measures like encryption to decode a satellite TV signal to enable to watch it. There is a moderate large hobby of people who listen or watch un-encrypted signals, we use to call them scanner listeners, but scanners evolved into Software Defined Radio devices as well. NB: There are explicit laws about listening into telephone conversations (both cordless and cellular) in ths US, AFAIK.

    3. Re:What's it do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The idea behind soft-radio is that you grab a signal from the air and use software to 'decode' it instead of hardware. So all decoding becomes an issue of software and not hardware.

      You can grab an FM signal from an antenna, use some software 'stuff', and get your favorite local station to come out the computer speaker. The only hardware you need is an antenna and a frontend to pump the signal into your computer. This device is that frontend interface between the RF capture device (antenna, dish, etc) and the computer, via a USB2 plug. The reason it was developed was that this kind of hardware was either very specific (grab only FM signals or TV signals) or very expensive (the cost of a new computer or two).

      The reason this will be labeled a terrorist device is because you can grab any signal from the spectrum (if you can make an antenna) so all the decoding becomes a software problem. You develop a program to decode HBO's satellite feed, and bang, this thing gets banned as a pirate device, err terrorist device as that's the buzzword dejour. Special interests will push this through Gov like everything else and claim it's destroying American capitalism, meanwhile never mentioning their monopolies destroy fair competition and hurt the consumer when prices rise.

      Geeks will lament as not only is this device a reciever but it's a transmiter as well. Want to make an ad-hoc WiFi-like network on some other frequency? What about a smart 'cell' phone that makes it's own network so you don't need a common provider (think p2p phones)? As it's so new, the possibilities have not been well thought out, but technologies like this are a solution looking for a problem, kinda like the PC in the 1980s.

  2. Slashdot commentary by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How long will it be till it's labeled a terrorist tool and banned?

    When HAM radio is?

    Seriously, what kind of commentary is this, especially with the FCC giving unprecedented amounts of frequency bandwidth back to the public?

    Couldn't the article have done just as well without the last sentence?

    1. Re:Slashdot commentary by John+Miles · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I remember an editorial in QEX not too long ago that suggested there were already political efforts under way to regulate the sale of high-performance ADCs.

      SDR is eventually going to make the Stalinist wannabees on Capitol Hill very nervous indeed. There is already precedent for banning the manufacture and sale of certain types of receiving equipment (Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 1987), so I would not take the availability of this technology for granted if I were you. It wouldn't be the least bit surprising to see a Federal ban on private ownership of high-speed analog-to-digital converters at the IC level.

      --
      Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
    2. Re:Slashdot commentary by VE3ECM · · Score: 4, Informative
      No, but if a ham is within the 'sphere of interference' that BPL causes on certain portions of the spectrum that they are legally entitled to operate on, there is nothing the BPL provider can do if the ham decides to park an antenna within 100 yards of the lines and broadcast 1500 W of power into the air at the freq's the BPL is operating on... thereby causing complete distruction (from a transmission perspective) of internet connectivity.

      Section 5 of the FCC regulations state that any device operating must accept any harmful interference from any device that is licensed to operate at similar frequencies.

      Now, that being said... because BPL advocates have much larger lobbies than amateur radio, they have managed to get the FCC to basically ignore their own regulations and all but 'stick it' to the ham operator, even though the ham is legally entitled to that slice of the pie.

      The Amateur Radio Relay League site on BPL has a lot more information.

  3. And this does what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is this just a radio tuner card for PCs?

  4. Can you say "Software Decoder? by CheapEngineer · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's apparently a general purpose software decoder of digital signals; decode DTV at a software level, apply software filters to analog audio, basically thru programming replicate all those arcane things done in both analog and digital radio/tv/shortwave signals.

  5. This is what Wikipedia says: by mahesh_gharat · · Score: 4, Informative


    A software-defined radio (SDR) system is a radio communication system which uses software for the modulation and demodulation of radio signals.

    An SDR performs significant amounts of signal processing in a general purpose computer, or a reconfigurable piece of digital electronics. The goal of this design is to produce a radio that can receive and transmit a new form of radio protocol just by running new software.

    Software radios have significant utility for the military and cell phone services, both of which must serve a wide variety of changing radio protocols in real time.

    The hardware of a software-defined radio typically consists of a superheterodyne RF front end which converts RF signals from and to analog IF signals, and analog to digital converter and digital to analog converters which are used to convert a digitised IF signal to and from analog form.

    Software-defined radio can currently be used to implement simple radio modem technologies. In the long run, software-defined radio is expected by its proponents to become the dominant technology in radio communications. GNURadio is a project to implement software-defined radio as free software.

    URL:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radi o

  6. Salon Article about the broadcasting spectrum... by dcowart · · Score: 5, Informative

    Essentially this is a device to 'tune' to any of the millions of frequencies that are in the upper part of the non-visible Electromagnetic spectrum. TV and Radio are broadcast in the long wavelength low frequency part of the specturm. Pretty pictures at Nasa

    Anyway, Here's a Salon Article about the polictical & technical aspects of it:
    http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/12/spect rum/index.html (Warning: you may have to click through a stupid ad.)

    --
    www.rdex.net
  7. SDR and hacking radios... by VE3ECM · · Score: 5, Informative
    SDR has long been considered the 'Holy Grail' in radio communications.

    There were quite a few pages dedicated to the advances in digital radio and SDR in Monitoring Times a few months back.

    One of the biggest advantages to a true SDR radio is that the manufacturer can build one or two models of radios, and have different software loads depending on bandsplit, features, costs, etc.

    Motorola tried that with their Jedi-series and XTS series of handy talkies over the past decade... biggest problem was that it is pretty simple (technologically) to take a radio with no special features (smartnet, digital modes, tone signalling, etc.) and enable the features by cloning the software load of another model.

    They did smarten up to that with the MTS2000 line of radios; any attempt to force a 'codeplug' into it that didn't belong would turn the unit into a brick, and you'd have to send it back to Motorola for a costly repair (as well as a stern talking to for 'hacking' at the radio).

    True software defined radios would be a lot easier to secure... on paper it would drive prices way down... in reality, as long as the radio manufacturers control the public service contracts, prices will still remain sky high.

    As an aside, WiNRADiO markets a device that could *almost* be considered an SDR device... super pricey for a receiver, but neat concept.

    I am looking forward to the day we see true SDR transceivers.

  8. With Tags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is it really so hard to use tags?

    Software radio or SDR - an intresting subject where mathematical formulas become radio.

    See for a high level overview.

    Good reading is Understanding digital Signal processing by Richard G. Lyons. Prentice Hall, 1st ed: ISBN 0201634678 (amazon.com, search). 2nd ed: ISBN 0-13-108989-7 (amazon.com, search)

    VanuBose 's company Vanu Technology demonstrated a software radio based on an iPAQ with a digital radio "backpack", in May 2003. Here are some links:

    Slashdot article

    Linuxdevices.com

    Vanu.com

    Vanu.com

    Here's a note on the future of software defined radio

    Several relevant pointers available here

  9. Re:Sweet ! by HanClinto · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've assembled and used a Flex Radio -- they really are pretty cool.
    We actually didn't use it for a Ham radio -- we used it to build a fairly inexpensive, high-quality DRM reciever (not Digital Rights Management, it stands for Digital Radio Mondiale -- pretty cool tech).

  10. If Copyright Infringment == Terrorism, yes by YetAnotherName · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The nice thing about GnuRadio is that you can build things like an ATSC digital television receiver, all in software. The problem is that, thanks to the heavy weight of the MPAA and other media lobbies, the FCC gave us the broadcast flag, meaning that a programmer can set a bit that says "do not record" such-and-such.

    But to make the broadcast flag effective, you also have to mandate that equipment pay attention to it, and be robust against user modification. You've got to make it otherwise illegal to make an ATSC receiver that doesn't obey it. And sure enough, that's what the FCC has done; July 2005, any equipment that doesn't obey the flag is illegal to sell, trade, create, etc.

    And with GnuRadio, you write an ATSC receiver that does or doesn't pay attention to it ... at your own peril. It makes specific uses of GnuRadio illegal, and even if you wrote your GnuRadio software to pay attention to the flag, a simple programming error would make your product illegal.

    Heck, it might even be said that GnuRadio itself will be illegal this year, since it fails the robustness rules.

    Now, is this copyright infringement? Refusing to record a pristine ATSC transport stream or recording it for personal use isn't necessarily a distinction the MPAA et al. are likely to make. But it does facilitate the distribution of perfect copies of Desperate Housewives and other quality programming (ahem), and the MPAA have used the copyright infringement/terrorism analogy before.

  11. Re:Slashdot commentary-Paranoids on parade. by John+Miles · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look up dual-use technology and try again.

    Care to tell me what in the world that has to do with anything? A Google search on "dual-use technology" returns nothing particularly enlightening. The term usually comes up in connection with technology exports.

    A receiver that covers 870-890 MHz has legitimate uses beyond monitoring AMPS cell-phone conversations, but that didn't stop the cellular lobby from buying the ECPA. What, in your obviously-informed opinion, is going to stop a similar consortium of HDTV broadcasters from buying legislation to outlaw unprotected high-bandwidth conversion hardware?

    Don't you guys get tired of being paranoid every second of every day, about everything?

    So sayeth the Anonymous Coward....

    --
    Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
  12. Re:naive question by plcurechax · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why go with usb2.0 as the interface instead of pci or multiple usb2.0 connectors

    Because USB2.0 was the fastest commonly available connection found on home PCs and laptops.

    PCI rules out laptops, but the developers (Eric and Matt) use and demo their work on laptops.

    Firewire wasn't as well developed and as well supported on all Free/Open OSes (OpenBSD in particular) when the decision was made.

    The on-board ADC / DAC and FPGA will reduce the needs for most applications to something that works, such as a single HDTV ATSC signal (which is roughly 6MHz bandwidth).