[Elecraft] Fwd: SDR Transforms Amateur Radio

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Very interesting article. Thanks. From it I quote "..SDR techniques have
even joined the mainstream, with services like ham radio adopting them as
prices permit..."

For some, "mainstream" is a warning label, whether it's in a hobby like Ham
radio or anything else in life. 

That "dreaded 11-year sunspot cycle" minimum that ARRL President Sumner
notes discourages so many is a good example. Yeah, a big sunspot cycle has
its own excitement, especially for "mainstream" Hams, but the corollary is
not necessarily true: lack of sunspots does not mean lack of excitement for
everyone. For many, a sunspot minimum is an interesting, even exciting time
to experiment with the lower frequencies (and how to get a signal out of
tiny, urban back yards with electrically miniscule antennas), to stalk those
"quiet" higher-frequency bands for the sporadic and exciting openings, to
develop VHF/UHF/SHF equipment and skills and almost countless other things. 

In technical development, it was those bucking the "mainstream" who brought
us Continuous Waves over Spark, AM and FM phone in addition to Morse, Single
Sideband in addition to AM and FM, Slow Scan TV, who discovered the "Short
Waves" and, yes, even Software-Defined Radio, just to name a few innovations
the "mainstream" operators of the day thought were uninteresting nonsense. 

So, if SDR is "mainstream", I wonder what's next for those innovators on the
leading edge?

Ron AC7AC


-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Fwd: SDR Transforms Amateur Radio

Link highly recommended. Don't miss the link to the interview with ARRL
president Sumner containing this gem:

"Sumner also indicated that there may be a lull in operation these days,
since the spectrum used by hams is now under the influence of the dreaded
11-year sunspot cycle. Sunspots produce radiation that blankets major
portions of the high-frequeny spectrum with noise, making communications
more difficult. It will diminish shortly, though, creating a much more
welcoming ham band."

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>http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/19439/19439.html