[Ted Ham]

After the prior post mentioning SDR radios, and me seeing how they work
withe the web radios, I am now intrigued by the concept. There are several
DIY and assembled brands used, with SoftRock being among the best price.
However, SoftRock does not appear to be available at this time and several
other brands may be "retired" as well.

What would be recommended? I don't want to spend a fortune, but still want
decent quality, preferably covering the HF bands. SSB, AM, FM. I see a
brand called Elektor SDR offering assembled kits under $150 US. However,
some people have problems with setup and a weak receiver. Now they have a
preamp for another $75 or so.

Appreciate any thoughts on the subject.

Thanks,
Ted Ham

[Adam Sampson]

"Ted Ham" writes:

However, SoftRock does not appear to be available at this time and
several other brands may be "retired" as well.

The SoftRock kits aren't retired; it's just that they appear in batches
and usually sell out within a day or so. If you're interested in getting
one, your best bet is to join the softrock40 group and wait for an
announcement:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softrock40/

Alternatively, you could try contacting Tony Parks directly. It sounds
like the SoftRock RX Ensemble kit would suit you (continuously-tunable
receiver with bandpass filters for 160m-10m on a single board; I built
the previous two-board version and have been very happy with it).

The SoftRock kits have the advantage of excellent build documentation
(http://www.wb5rvz.com/sdr/) and lots of troubleshooting experience on
the mailing list, but it's worth looking at some of the other similar
kits from other suppliers too.

For example, the Soft66RF is much like the RX Ensemble, but designed to
use off-the-shelf inductors:
http://zao.jp/radio/66RF/index_e.php

And Funkamateur do a line of cheap fixed-frequency/IF receivers along
the lines of the SR Lite, but with all through-hole components, and with
LF and VHF variants available:
http://www.box73.de/catalog/index.php?cPath=112_113_143

(If you have an existing radio with a suitably wide IF output, a
fixed-frequency receiver on the IF frequency is the cheapest and easiest
way of playing with SDR; the SR Lite or Funkamateur kits cater for that.)

Hope this helps,

--
Adam Sampson http://offog.org/