FLDIGI LINUX MINT PRO

There are a lot of HF SDR transceivers on the market, and a ton of options to weigh when choosing the right rig for your needs. Yuri is the president of the company, and has been great to work with. I bought mine from NSI, the US importer, who happens to be located about fifteen minutes from my house. Not much to look at, but underneath that unassuming aluminum box, it’s state of the art. It’s quite a compact and sturdy little thing. This radio is designed in Russia and manufactured in Taiwan.

FLDIGI LINUX MINT PRO

After much research, I settled on the SunSDR2 Pro made by Expert Electronics. And what a glorious user interface it is.

Meaning that most SDR rigs are now a simple box with a power switch, a power light, and some connectors, and the PC becomes the user interface.

The radio itself is now not much more than a front-end with a digitizer, and the vast majority of what used to be done with analog circuits inside the radio is now done with software in a PC. Which basically means that your computer makes up the bulk of the radio (see the wikipedia article here). SDR is the cutting edge of radio these days.

Even today, the radio holds it’s own as a pretty decent rig, but after 16+ years, it was time to upgrade, so the Icom went up on Ebay. And at $3300, it was a sizable investment. At the time, it was one of the best HF transceivers money could buy. I had an Icom IC-756Pro that I bought brand new right when they were introduced to the market back in 2000.

Fldigi linux mint