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What do SDR radios and setups look like?

Steve Green NEPA

Steve Green NEPA

Even though I have a 'Chocolate First', now a 'General', from 1972 out of REI's accelerated school in Sarasota, my electronics knowledge henceforth will remain likened more to fingerpainting to that of meters and ohms and mhos and propogation.
But over 50 years of AM DXing I know of QRM and other hobby obstacles. Lately I've been puttering around on various SDR sites (if indeed that's what they're called) to try and // audio between those sites and the radios in my house. Formerly intrigued solely by the immense variety of the AM dial in lots of SDR sites on this laptop, I've recently become curious as to what radios are being used, and why there's such a uniform & static-free reception sound on every one of them I have bookmarked.
Would anyone aboard here have some pictures of the radios used? The antennae? Maybe of the whole 27 feet?
And perhaps some words vis-a-vis the original applied theory and implementation behind it all?
What would I need to attempt setting up such a site here, near Pottsville PA? A cave? A water tower ? Windows 110 ? A Ham license? Shock treatment initiation ? All of that and more?

Enclosed is return postage for your replies.
 
The Seeed Studio KiwiSDR is certainly a popular choice. It has an SMA coaxial connector, so you can attach whatever type of antenna you prefer for whatever band you want to receive. I believe it has 50 Ohm input impedance, so you might need a transformer for certain antennas.

However, the KiwiSDR doesn't appear to have much availability today, probably due to the chip shortage you've no doubt heard about. Not sure about other options.
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
Even though I have a 'Chocolate First', now a 'General', from 1972 out of REI's accelerated school in Sarasota, my electronics knowledge henceforth will remain likened more to fingerpainting to that of meters and ohms and mhos and propogation.
But over 50 years of AM DXing I know of QRM and other hobby obstacles. Lately I've been puttering around on various SDR sites (if indeed that's what they're called) to try and // audio between those sites and the radios in my house. Formerly intrigued solely by the immense variety of the AM dial in lots of SDR sites on this laptop, I've recently become curious as to what radios are being used, and why there's such a uniform & static-free reception sound on every one of them I have bookmarked.
Would anyone aboard here have some pictures of the radios used? The antennae? Maybe of the whole 27 feet?
And perhaps some words vis-a-vis the original applied theory and implementation behind it all?
What would I need to attempt setting up such a site here, near Pottsville PA? A cave? A water tower ? Windows 110 ? A Ham license? Shock treatment initiation ? All of that and more?

Enclosed is return postage for your replies.
Click to expand...
First, go to this site.
KiwiSDR: Wide-band SDR + GPS cape for the BeagleBone Black. It has a lot of technical information.
I have heard plenty of SDRs with static. It all depends on the electrical noise level wherever the antenna is locaated.
 
Technically, any radio with a DSP chip has a built in SDR, because the radio circuitry inside the actual chips are much the same: Antenna > RF amp > analog to digital converter > software that amplifies, tunes, filters, etc. (manipulated by the controls on the radio, via a microprocessor) > digital to analog converter > AF & audio chip > speaker or headphones.

If you look at block diagrams of your average SiLabs DSP chip (in many Sangean and Tecsun and Grundig radios) and a block diagram of an SDR (the RTL-SDR is a good example) the basic radio circuitry design is much the same. If you take any of your average SDRs and plugged them into the typical loopstick antenna you find in most portable radios, the results undoubtedly would be much the same.

The SDR we're all acquainted with, with the big, colorful waterfall display, and on-screen controls, is a function of extra, interface software that allows the DSP chip to be accessed, controlled and manipulated by a computer keyboard.

I'm saying all this because if you're mainly just interested in DXing and using different bandwidths and tuning techniques, you may get similar enough performance from a DSP chip radio, like a Sangean PR-D5 of PR-D4w. Most guys that use SDR's get the good results that they get because of the antennas they use with them, more than any particular function of the SDR itself. SDRs may have more bandwidths and other filters, which undoubtedly helps, but generally the most important element of a radio, when it comes to DXing, is your antenna. Most IF or DSP chips today have plenty of gain and adequate filtering. The computer SDR just gives you a lot more capability of manipulating the functions.

And you can record more easily, of course, which a lot of DXers do -- they'll record the whole MW spectrum and then go back over and over again to try to catch IDs. That's something you simply can not do with a PR-D5 or similar DSP chip radio.
 
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