computer assisted radio monitoring

All About Sound Cards — Part I

During the past few columns I have been concentrating on the serial port and its critical role is in connecting a personal computer to a compatible monitoring radio. There are two types of connections that a serial port allows you to do.

The first type of connection allows you to control the mechanical operation of the radio through software in your computer. The software can be used to change frequencies, adjust bandwidth, or scan a bank of frequencies — to name only a few functions.

The second type of connection allows you to capture and process digital signals such as CW (Morse code), RTTY (Radio Teletype), or FAX (images of maps or documents) through specially designed computer software. When this processing is successful the sounds of CW are converted into letters, RTTY becomes messages, and FAX becomes clear and usable documents.