In this letter to the editor, the author responds to the story “SDRplay Thinks Big With the nRSP-ST.” Radio World welcomes letters to the editor on this or any story. Email [email protected].
As we approach the 4th of July and I’ve started my 79th orbit around the sun, it is good to still be soaking in its rays.
But I must say that James was careless in his article to not mention that software-defined radios have damaged the traditional hobby of long-distance signal listening (DX’ing). I have been responding for decades to letters, originally on paper — though in recent times mostly on email — from AM band signal reception enthusiasts throughout northern Europe.
With the advent of SDR’s and the ability to record IQ data on hard drives or thumb drives, the DX chase is not what it once was. Back in the day, DX’ing was more luck-driven, requiring tenacity and lots of coffee, where you had to manually scan the AM dial throughout the night with a cassette recorder at your side along with pencil and paper.
These days when I receive a DX report, besides verifying it, I critique their armchair prowess.
How easy they have it compared to those who came before them?
Instead of having to travel to remote cabins north of the Arctic Circle and trying to stay awake while hunting through the noise for an audible station ID, they can ignore the whole process and many months later review the SDR data files, maybe with AI-driven software, to quickly search all the signals across the entire AM band at once.
For sure, technological advances make life easier while the underpinnings become more complex. Just what an engineer enjoys!
But are we not losing something by becoming lazier?
— Ira Wilner, Keene, N.H.
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