June 16, 2010

Software Defined Radio for the iPhone

First came Echolink for the iPhone.   Now a software defined radio (SDR) application is available for the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.  The iSDR app is a portable software-defined radio receiver designed for experimenters, shortwave listeners and Amateur Radio operators -- and get this - it's free!  (One caveat: receiving live on-the-air signals with iSDR requires purchasing or constructing a quadrature sampling detector - QSD - an RF front-end device that connects between an antenna and the microphone input jack of the iPhone, iPod or iPad. Without the front-end, iSDR will play an internal audio file recording of actual radio signals recorded off the air during the 2008 CQ World Wide WPX contest.)

The iSDR developers list the following features of the app:
  • Three display modes: Spectrum, Waterfall and Oscilloscope
  • Frequency display with 100 Hz resolution with a touch to the display screen
  • Up to 44.1 kHz of available spectrum bandwidth
  • Monaural microphone input automatically adjusts display to 22 kHz bandwidth
  • Automatic display rotation
  • Recorded audio file built in for off-line use without external audio
  • Automatically detects if external audio is available
  • Five receive modes: USB, LSB, CW, DSB and Binaural
  • Reverse I/Q microphone input logic
  • User-adjustable center frequency setting
Time to scrap the old BlackBerry?

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