Revised: February 9, 2025
The ability to author custom Digital Signal Processing (DSP) software is one way to work effectively with SDR at a hands on level. A level that has characterized amateur radio from the earliest days. Home-brew DSP, in effect, partially replaces the soldering iron when it comes to home-brew SDR projects. The radio is built around the capabilities one writes into the software. GNU Radio, is a popular software development environment for SDR DSP software.
The ability to create and work with software for SDR projects is a new skill for many hams. Professional programmers have a number of options to pursue. For hams without a programming background, software packages are now available that simplify programming with graphically based interfaces and useful DSP libraries already packaged in the application.
The ham experimenter has choices of graphically based DSP software packages: the proprietary packages, MatlabR / SimulinkR by Math Works and LabVIEW by National Instruments, or the open source GNU Radio / GNU Radio Companion (GRC) DSP library package. The GNU Radio / GNU Radio Companion open source DSP software library is a development tool intended for educational programs, industrial product development labs, and for hobbyists. GNU Radio can be used as a simulation tool to study DSP without being connected to an SDR. GNU Radio can also be used to develop practical and operationally satisfying DSP software for both radio transmitters and receivers.
The foundational GNU Radio DSP library is accessed with character-based command line commands. To make DSP authoring accessible for all levels of users, the GNU Radio developers provided the user option of GNU Radio Companion (GRC). GRC is a graphical overlay to the GNU Radio DSP library. The graphical overlay represents DSP functions as graphical icons with data inputs and outputs which can be manipulated on a computer window to create functional DSP programs.
This website features the combination of GNU Radio / GNU Radio Companion as one of the, ‘ham friendly’, open source DSP applictions for amateur SDR projects.
Link to Terms and Abbreviations Page: Terms and Abbreviations
Home Page link: Home Page