This session’s topic — software-defined radios — is an important topic. Matt Ettus and Eric Blossom are the presenters.

It’s an important topic because we have a broadcast system based on the idea that the receivers of signals can only do one thing with the signal: turn it back into sound. But if a radio is programmable, we caa\n be much smarter about how we transmit information and we can do much more interesting things with the signal once the radio receives it.

The HD TV demo looked fine, although there were some “motion artifacts” caused by the player they’re using. You can play TV through your TV already, of course, but these guys are doing it without a dedicated tuner and HDTV card. And it’s all open source.

Says Eric: The politics are hairy. We’re waiting to see what the FCC does about the broadcast flag. There’s also a “preposterous” proposal that all analog-to-digital devices should shut down if they detect a watermark indicating protected content. But in general, the FCC has been good about software-defined radio; they see it as something that may redefine radio (says Eric).

Even the cheapest computers these days (e.g., 1gH PIII) is more than enough. They are targeting $300-$400 for the board that will turn your computer into a software radio.

[Eric, in response to a question, talks about the myth of interference and new studies of mesh networks showing that smart transmitters and receivers actually increase capacity. May I reference my article in Salon that explicates David Reed’s view on this? No? Sorry, too late.]

Categories: Uncategorized dw