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." > >http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/19439/19439.html _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
