Have you ever wanted to build your own radio receiver? Looking for a challenging but fun software project? Coding SDR meets both objectives. It is a project within reach of radio hobbyists with a bit of skill in writing software. Here are some ideas.
Tag: RTL-SDR
RTL-SDR: Does it really work?
When I put the RTL-SDR at the top of my Christmas wish list last year, a few eyebrows were raised. Why would a guy who has played with some of the best radios available want a little trinket that looked like a USB flash drive and cost about the same? Surely that was a mistake. It wasn’t.
According to Wikipedia, a dongle is “a small piece of hardware that attaches to a computer, TV, or other electronic device in order to enable additional functions…” The RTL-SDR is a dongle that plugs into the USB port and enables your computer to be a software defined radio. You just need to add software (which can be free) and an antenna and voila – a complete reasonably high performance radio for under $20.