WR-G33EM Marine Receiver

Overview

The WiNRADiO WR-G33EM is a high-performance receiver specially developed for marine applications. It covers the HF frequency range to 30 MHz, and contains a number of decoding facilities including HF Fax, NAVTEX, DSC and TELEX, as well as classical AM, SSB and CW radio modes.

A GPS option is also available which integrates the receiver with a high-resolution global mapping facility.

This high-performance marine receiver is extremely sensitive and optimized to work with relatively short antennas, typically found in a marine environment, yet featuring a respectable dynamic range making the receiver resistant to strong signal overload.

Software Defined Radio

The WR-G33EM is the first Software Defined Radio specifically designed for marine applications.

A Software Defined Radio (SDR) is one where most of the radio signal processing is performed in software, using digital signal processing methods, rather than using traditional hardware parts, resistors, capacitors, diodes, etc. The received signal is digitized early in the signal processing chain, and any further processing, demodulation and decoding of the digitized signal is then performed entirely in software.

There are many advantages to this approach, especially the flexibility of demodulation modes - new modes can be added easily by simply upgrading software. The G33EM also performs better than a comparable conventional receiver, thanks to advanced signal processing techniques which make it possible to implement sharper selectivity filters, and more accurate demodulators and decoders than conventional hardware.

The performance of a Software Defined Radio receiver is also more consistent, stable and reliable because component tolerances and aging do not play such an important role as in a conventional receiver.

And finally, the G33EM receiver offers far more features and facilities than a conventional receiver. For example, the real-time spectrum analyzer with continuously variable bandwidth, graphical notch filter and IF recording are some of the many features which were previously unavailable on a conventional marine radio, in particular at such an affordable price level.