Software-defined radio or SDR changes the radio landscape forever. But to use one, you have to buy some kind of hardware, right? Maybe not. Like [Tech Minds] shows in a recent video there are many SDRs publicly available on the Internet. We know this is not news, but the video covers several different methods for finding and using SDR receivers, including many that work entirely in the browser.
Of course, there are many reasons why you may want to borrow an alien radio, even if you have your own hardware. Maybe you don’t have a great antenna, or maybe you want to hear a signal – maybe even your own – from somewhere else.
Some of these methods even have the ability to transfer audio data to another program if you want to do some decoding or processing. The SPY network uses SDR # software, so you will need to install something for this. On the other hand, the program doesn’t actually treat the local hardware and the remote differently, so you can do a lot of different things. But many of the programs will work in a normal browser. The SDR Console also needs some software.
WebSDR works completely in the browser. KiwiSDR uses the very great OpenWebRX interface and obviously decodes radio signals from the server, which makes it easier to listen to various signals in the browser.
Since everyone has a little more free time at home these days, this is a great way to start listening to the radio without zero extra investment. Of course, if you have a slope and antennas, you can take cheap dongle, although you will need a high frequency converter to listen to the shortwave bands. Or you can hack a QCX transceiver.