Nilesh.org Notes on technology and everything else

You guessed it. GNU Radio. A radio whose channel modulation waveforms are defined by software. The waveforms are generated as sampled digital signals, converted to analog using a wideband DAC. For the receiver, a wide band ADC captures all channels and demodulates the waveforms using software on a general purpose processor.

Can’t seem to grasp all this? Doesn’t matter. Just imagine that using a small hardware and some software, you can tell the radio to do things ranging from making beeps to receiving a FM channel. Or if you don’t want to miss Radio City 91 while listening to Win94.6 or Radio Mirchi, it can play both the channels for you. You can even convert the box into a ham radio. All this with the power of Open Source. Salon says, “GNU Radio is a steppingstone to the ultimate hybrid device: a handheld PC that can be converted into a walkie-talkie one minute and an HDTV the next.”