build a software defined radio

I got paid a lot of money and lost a lot of sleep building several software defined radio receivers, one of which was a multichannel receiver for a 138 MHz radar. Some of the desired feature lists I see in other entries would have been a breeze to add, others nearly impossible.

If you’re looking for ideas on how to do it, you’re going to have to know how radios work. The ARRL has plenty of publications to help you get a handle on this.

There are now plenty of chipsets to do much of the heavy lifting. In another few years, general purpose CPUs may be enough. One of our designs used a set of SHARC DSPs to do the hard work.

But that’s a part of my life that I’ve left behind. 73’s to the rest of you.

I am Uzair Nazir Tanoli. I am a student of computer engineering. I want to know about building a software defined radio. Plz help me in getting this task done. DO send me a mail on tanoli_designer@yahoo.com
Regards

I want to build, buy, own, tweak, and in general, play with, a software defined radio transciever. I want to be able to write a program which can do arbitrary modulation modes, including CW, FSK, PSK, AM, FM, SSB, TV, FAX, and 802.11 packets.

Ideally, it would work from DC to blue light, but I’d be happy with 0-20 Mhz, with band converters to go to at least 3 Ghz.