Thursday, September 08, 2011

The RFSpace netSDR

A relatively new SDR on the market is the NetSDR which, contrary to most other SDRs, communicate with the PC over a 100 base-T port instead of USB. Another interesting aspect is that while you need remote control software like LogMeIn to control other SDRs over the internet, the netSDR actually transports its full 1.6 MHz waterfall and demodulated audio via a 10 kbps link. It uses straight TCO/IP and ethernet for all communications. In many ways it can be seen as a downscaled version of the SDR-IP.

The NetSDR arrived today, just in time for the Arctic DX Summit. Initial impressions using Spectravue and SDR-RADIO software are very positive. Its footprint is quite a bit bigger (almost double size) than the Perseus and Winradio Excalibur. It has room however for some very interesting hardware to be retrofitted.

More on this after I have explored the radio a bit further, including sensitivity measurements.

2 comments:

4nradio said...

Hmm... "beam steering" applications for the netSDR Option X2 hardware...The future looks bright for software based antenna phasing finally reaching the consumer grade receivers.

Bjarne Mjelde said...

Guy: My thoughts exactly...