UPDATE:
Because of predicted very poor weather conditions tonight (below zero and high winds with blowing snow), tonight's SCARC meeting is cancelled. It has been rescheduled for next Thursday, January 14, 2010 in the usual place at the 4-H building.
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The next meeting of the Story County Amateur Radio Club will be at 7:30 pm, Thursday, January 7, 2010, at the 4-H building on the southwest corner of 13th Street and Stange Road in Ames.
The program for the January SCARC meeting will be
Software-Defined Radios
A general technological trend that we are seeing is the replacement of hardware with software. This is a general trend that holds the promise of increased functionality and flexibility with lower cost. This trend is also evident in some modern ham radio products, notably HF and VHF transceivers or “software-defined radios” (SDRs). Some of these SDRs (e.g. the TenTek Orion and Orion 2 and the Elcraft K3) have the look and feel of a traditional radio. At the other extreme you have the FlexRadio SDR-xxx series of radios that are little more than a box with a connector for power, one for the antenna, and one going to a computer. No knobs!
The core of the program will be two or three of the most interesting presentations that were made at the 2009 Dayton Hamvention SDR Forum. The first two presentations that we will see are those that were given by K5DSR, describing the FlexRadio products and a contrasting presentation by KK7P describing the popular Elcraft K3 radio. If there is time and interest, there is a third presentation by ARRL President W5ZN on the operation of an SDR (a FlexRadio SDR-5000, I think), particularly in DXing and contesting.