Soon after the release of RTL-SDR a lot of people started to play with software defined radios. Although the Elonics E4000 tuner and the Realtek RTL2832U Chip are a long way from the quality and performance/stability of an USRP(2), the price of $11 - EUR30 makes these devices an ideal beginners device for SDR experiments, without having to invest +$1k into hardware.

As soon as the new OsmoSDR is finished and available, it will provide a very cost-effective device, filling the gap between the funcube, with only 96kHz bandwith - some people lovingly call it the sadcube these days - and the USRP. The OsmoSDR approach seems to be the best compromise of both worlds and the osmocom team is doing a real kick-ass job, putting it together.

Right now, not only hackers, but old-school hams and other people are drawn to gnuradio and rtlsdr but sometimes find it hard to leave their known world behind and dive into the new world of doing radio in software. In order to make the transition easier, good examples are desperately needed. The following setup is an easy to understand, uncluttered narrow band FM receiver, that most hams and radio related people should be able to grasp and tweak.

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