My WinRadio G303
For general shortwave receiving I use a WinRadio G303 receiver.
The photo above shows the software for my rather old G303 along with the standard onboard interface to the sound chip which was supplied with my AMD 3800+ HP computer.
The WinRadio is an internal one and that, too, lives inside the computer in a PCI slot and connects to the long wire antenna via a tuner from an SMA socket on the card.
I've had this radio several years now and, touch wood, it always gives a good account of itself and works well.
When I first got it, I thought that interference from the electronics around it in the computer might be a problem but, aside from some squeaks at regular internals up and down the bands, there hasn't been any difficulties. This is surprising since the PCI board is only inches away from the motherboard.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and all I would change now is that I would pay out the extra money for an external model. Then I could use it with any computer and, more importantly for me, I could use it with the netbook when we go away. If you read this blog regularly you will also know that I use an Icom PCR1500 with my Samsung netbook and that works very well. I assume that an external WinRadio would do the same.
If I were buying now, I would go for the G313 which is the same except that it covers a slightly wider frequency range by going into the start of the VHF. In an ideal world this would have been better for it would have meant that one radio would serve all my listening needs. However, there are other advantages to using two separate radios.
The photo above shows the software for my rather old G303 along with the standard onboard interface to the sound chip which was supplied with my AMD 3800+ HP computer.
The WinRadio is an internal one and that, too, lives inside the computer in a PCI slot and connects to the long wire antenna via a tuner from an SMA socket on the card.
I've had this radio several years now and, touch wood, it always gives a good account of itself and works well.
When I first got it, I thought that interference from the electronics around it in the computer might be a problem but, aside from some squeaks at regular internals up and down the bands, there hasn't been any difficulties. This is surprising since the PCI board is only inches away from the motherboard.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and all I would change now is that I would pay out the extra money for an external model. Then I could use it with any computer and, more importantly for me, I could use it with the netbook when we go away. If you read this blog regularly you will also know that I use an Icom PCR1500 with my Samsung netbook and that works very well. I assume that an external WinRadio would do the same.
If I were buying now, I would go for the G313 which is the same except that it covers a slightly wider frequency range by going into the start of the VHF. In an ideal world this would have been better for it would have meant that one radio would serve all my listening needs. However, there are other advantages to using two separate radios.
