When I was young, I had a dream. I imagined of one device that could replace them all. Why have a separate
-CB
-HF
-49mhz analog phone
-FM Radio
-VHF/UHF
-TV tuner
-GSM cellphone
-DECT phone
-GPS
Whilst all of them are based on RF?
Since I was a 15yo kid, of course I could only have this device in my dreams.
Now I see that time has come. With the advent of FPGA’s and modern electronics, you can have them ALL in ONE!
Why bother carrying all of this stuff, while funcube dongle exists?
Why buy expensive hardware that does very specific things, on very specific frequencies, and not write (or even re-use) some lines of code that run on generic hardware?
Why the fuck pay thousands of dollars for ICOM, YAESU and KENWOOD top-line machinery since what each of them has to show is their DSP unit? Create your own DSP unit! It’s just dragging n dropping a block!
Long live the Software Radio!
Thank you John Gilmore, Eric Blossom, Matt Ettus!