With their funding, just not a priority unless a retailer gets particularly egregious about selling them: http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-11-984A1.pdf

It would be nice if it had a built-in antenna tuner, like the IC-703 or (optional) Elecrafts.

Who cares, Leif is a intellectual  giant in the amateur radio fraternity. His web page is one of the best ham radio technical pages on the web. His credibility is still intact, the people who are losing credibility are the point scoring whiners. The apology has been made what more do they want?

Anyone can make a honest mistake.  All I see is a gross over reaction by a bunch of Flexradio crybabies who cant stand any scrutiny or criticism. They the only ones who live in a perfect radio world of their own making. The gross over reaction is all about money. Leif's work is in the public domain and  is a great reflection of the true ham technical spirit of caring and sharing. Grand standing over such  a trivial matter that  does not undermine Flex radio sales in anyway shows the small mindedness of the Flexradio groupies.

Build a bridge and get over it guys, there is more to life than Flexradios, a helluva lot more! Read Leifs web page and your horizons will broaden!

Well the most pressing need is for us to clean up our transmitters.  SDR technology can deliver this dream that has eluded ham radio transceiver designers for decades. Its not that it has not been possible, its just that there has been no interest improving transmitter IMD.

There is little to be gained by pursuing any more receiver performance numbers while our transmitter IMD performance is about as good as most 20 dollar CB radios. This fundamental point which limits  receiver potential is ignorantly   being ignored by  just about all the companies who boast that they have the best receiver performance. Radio like the Elecraft K3, Flexradio  and Orion might have very good receivers however their transmitters have terrible IMD  performance. Another case in point is the new Ten Tec Eagle with very good receiver performance however its transmitter IMD  is about the worst that I have measured. There are many CB radios that have better TX IMD performance than the Ten Tec eagle!

SDR techniques such as adaptive pre-distortion and envelope restoration will deliver SDR transmitters that will deliver clean signals that wont hamper extracting the maximum performance from our receivers.

We need better transmitters for cycle 24 and DSP technology can deliver these improved transmitters.  However, we need both smart technology and smart operators. While we have dumb LIDS who insist on cranking all knobs to the right and who are using cheap CB amplifiers on the ham bands what good is technology when you have idiots like these on the air? DSP cant fix the CB mentality thats creeping into ham radio in regards to poor amplifier choices.

The mantra for cycle 24 is "better TX IMD, better TX IMD, better TX IMD, better TX IMD


Another potential area that could be easily developed for SDR radios is  direction finding technology. It would not be hard to build into a ham transceiver the possibility of Single Site Location direction finding. This could use the 2 phase locked receivers with say 2 or 3 antennas. The MUSIC and ESPRIT algorithms  would be a very easy accomplishment. DF array size has dropped dramatically with improved algorithms. This same technology could also be used for reducing QRM in the form of adaptive beam forming.

This SSL(single site location) DF ability would make jamming a thing of the past if its widely deployed in the ham radio hobby. With things like google maps tied onto a DF cluster most idiots and jammers would be off  the air within 2 minutes, even people who click microphones! This technology is widely used by governments and the military however its always been cost prohibitive. The only company in the ham community that I see that could pull this off is RFSPACE. Most other ham companies are  just not educated enough in all this technology to realize how easy this stuff is to do today.  RFSPACE is the only company that seems to deliver the SDR goods.

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What should we look for in buying a basic SDR ,  for radio operations in solar cycle 24?  Or should we wait a little longer for SDR  future tech advancements , and what should these advancements be? 

Digital modes, such as JT65 and Olivia, already let us do that and they don't require SDR/DPS.