WR-G31DDC Reviews

RadioUser

"This is a great receiver that will change the way you monitor the HF bands. Being able to see the entire spectrum in one display and jump to any point with a click of a mouse is a very powerful tool."

"The quality of the filtering is excellent and is primarily determined by the filter length setting. Having fine control of such good quality filters means you can really pluck your wanted signal out of the noise. This worked superbly well for me during the review and made utility monitoring so much easier."

"The masterstroke is that WiNRADiO have done a brilliant job with the Excalibur user interface and this receiver is an absolute breeze to use once you've spent a bit of time finding your way around it. Whilst it may sound as though you have to carefully set the DDC width and so on, in practice, you can point and click your way around the bands in a flash. It really does change the way you operate because the entire spectrum is at your fingertips and available at a click of a mouse."

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RadCom

"The Excalibur is more than just a receiver; it is also a high performance spectrum analyzer over a wide range of frequencies and a usable dynamic range in excess of 110 dB."

"Reciprocal mixing measurements showed that the phase noise performance was excellent. Indeed, the figures are best for any radio I have ever measured."

"I liked very much the user interface, a good balance between ease of use and well presented information. The various spectrum displays were excellent and give a good visual impression of the radio environment."

"The performance as a spectrum analyzer was first class, with better resolution, wider display range and faster sweeps than my 100 dB display range Hewlett Packard instrument."

"The Excalibur receiver is a top rate performer supported by excellent software and the spectrum displays are a superb bonus. The 16-bit analogue to digital converter results in unsurpassed strong signal performance and once again my league table of close-in dynamic range receiver performance has a new No. 1."

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Monitoring Times

"Being able to see the activity in the entire spectrum at once affords a number of advantages, including watching for activity and band openings so that one may immediately pounce on a signal anywhere in the spectrum with a click of the mouse."

"Viewing the entire spectrum with the waterfall perspective is a transfixing, if not transcendental, experience."

"I’m sure my exuberance over this remarkable receiver is obvious. In my professional lifetime in communications electronics, I’ve never seen anything with such shortwave receiving and processing power at such a low price. In the time it took me to write this review, I have changed from a digital skeptic to a true believer. This is one amazing radio!"

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World Radio TV Handbook

"The WiNRADiO WR-G31DDC Excalibur has a DDC bandwidth of no less than 2 MHz, which is as far as we are aware the largest of any consumer SDR."

"We should say at this stage that the DRM implementation in Excalibur is truly excellent and the best we have ever used. It produces almost immediate and consistent results from signals which other receivers would either not process at all or suffer persistent drop-outs."

"In performance terms the Excalibur sets new standards in several areas. It is the most sensitive SDR we have yet measured."

"Conclusion: All in all, Excalibur is already the best SDR we have used - and knowing WiNRADiO we imagine that future software releases will only serve to make it even better."

Overall rating: 5 stars

Category winner: Best SDR 2011

QST

"WiNRADiO's WR-G31DDC Excalibur software defined receiver offers excellent performance. Despite the wealth of features found in the accompanying software, it's easy to set up and enjoy."

"The Excalibur offered the best DRM performance I've experienced to date. It even managed to maintain a decoding 'lock' during signal fades."

"... I was fascinated to see that Excalibur did a superb job down at 5 kHz with an MDS of -100 dBm. The "basement" of radio is very noisy at my location, but I have a feeling that the Excalibur would be an excellent receiver for listening to 'natural radio' (Dawn Chorus, whistlers, and others) in quiet environments."

"The WiNRADiO WR-G31DDC Excalibur is an astonishing piece of technology. From a user standpoint, I'm tempted to compare the Excalibur experience to working with a lump of unformed clay on a potter's wheel. The radio makes a vast range of RF spectrum (the 'clay') available to you and by carefully tweaking the functions in the Excalibur software you can create whatever reception characteristics you desire."

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