CIAOradio SDR Software And Hardware
CIAOradio by Oscar Steila,IK1XPV & Claudio Re, I1RFQ http://www.comsistel.com/
CIAOradio SDR software along with its H101 hardware (receiver section) is a Software Defined Radio system that has surprised me.
The graphics here are in Italian, yet the software you get from CIAO with its support text are all in English. So there is an Italian version and an English version. Use your mouse View Image feature to see a larger view.
I have wondered how well a software might work when it also has to share functions for radio receiver control in terms of sharing conflicts? This software resolves that issue very well. In addition to its seamless and flawless operation as well as good sound quality it features such modes as Synchronous AM, C QAM, FM, and DRM, along with regular quadrature detection of AM, CW and SSB among its modes of operation.
It operates in both the quadrature I/Q stereo mode as well as non quadrature wide upper side band Rx mode.
It sports a front panel tuning dial on its GUI along with a click able option to directly input the frequency you want to go to. Likewise it has a signal strength meter and its bandpass filter adjustment window also allows you to create a notch filter with the mouse pointer. You can in fact make as many notches in the bandpass as you can. "As you can" being related to how experienced you become at doing this since some notches you create can be very narrow, but that comes with practice. I really like the notch feature.
I have seen other softwares attempt to do what this does but without being seamless and without conflicts. And so, all in all this is an excellent contribution to the art of SDR software. This is very creative and looks really good also.
The advantages I have using the CIAO Radio software and hardware are that I am not only able to enjoy the best features in SDR radio and listening pleasure but I also have some useful test and design features for a R&D platform.
The hardware has a separate transmitter section to output a low level DDS signal anywheres in the HF spectrum. I can use this for testing my own home brew QSD ideas. As a general purpose signal generator or even to drive a transmitter with a LO IN that is digitally stable. Also, the spectrum display is useful as a spectrum analyzer for locating phase and sideband noise in my projects. Also, the software with the hardware can switch back and forth between its two antenna inputs and plot a graph of the gain of the two antennas. So you can use a dipole and a prototype test antenna to plot the gain of the prototype with the dipole as a reference.
The smooth operation of the software allows me to use other softwares on the same PC with CIAO. I can use HamScope for all my digital communications modes, SSTV software, weather fax software etc. And I can turn off the CIAO software after I have set it for a band segment to tune across with other software. I turn off the CIAO software and the hardware is still running so I can use SDRadio with it, Winrad or DRM. These softwares will allow you to select the USB input as the sound input from the H101 hardware.
If you want both a nice HF general coverage shortwave receiver and something to aid you in hardware research and design then this is the thing you want to have as a test center and a reference. Not to mention a very high performance shortwave radio receiver.
Visit the site and download the demo software and check it out. You can use the demo software on side band with your existing QSD board to check it out.
Leave a note to CIAO there for registering the software for full use and tell them that Daniel Jackson sent you. I think you can get the software by itself in a full working registered version to use with any of your hardware projects. The software will work like SDRadio and take its I/Q input from the sound card line level input. And so, you can use it with anything you have in SDR hardware.
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