SDRplay Announce Understanding Radio Communications Course for Academic Teachers
SDRplay have announced the start of their undergraduate University course titled "Understanding Radio Communications". This course is created by the Sapienza University of Rome and consists of text material plus a series of YouTube videos released on the "SDRplay Educators" channel. Currently only the introduction videos are released, and they note that all videos will be released in early December 2020. A PDF info sheet about the course can found here, and if you wish to register for the course you'll need to sign up at sdrplay.com/understandingradio.
The course appears to be intended for University teachers in order to accelerate adoption of SDR based teaching of RF courses. We're unsure if this material will be released to the general public as their signup form appears to ask for University details. They write:
Alton, England; 5th November 2020 – SDRplay Limited announces a new Radio Communications course for under-graduate teaching as part of its SDRplay Educators Programme
“Understanding Radio Communications – using SDRs” includes a rich set of teaching materials and practical exercises to help students understand the key elements of radio communications. This one semester course provides teaching materials and practical workshops that lead students from the first switch-on of a Software Defined Radio (SDR), through to signal reception, demodulation, and finally, successful communications with satellite signals.
As well as guides and set-up instructions for teachers for both the lecture and lab sessions, there are downloadable teaching materials in both PowerPoint and .pdf formats. There are video guides showing the lab activities and there’s a dedicated new forum for teachers to share experiences and to get help from the authors.
The course was created in association with academic partners Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering whose intention was to create a practical course that will inspire Science, Technology and Engineering students to nurture their understanding of radio communications.
The course started life as a 12-hour optional course for third-year bachelor students in Aerospace Engineering and has been broadened to make it suitable for all students that have some basic knowledge of signal theory and signal processing. It can either be run as an additional or optional “module” or adapted to be included as materials within a full year radio communications subject.
Robert Owen, University Programme specialist at Essaimage who guided the academic team, says, “I have spent 26 years in global “University Programmes” and across this time I’ve learned two fundamental principles. The first is that teaching materials must fill an essential need in the curriculum, not just be something that business thinks should be taught. And secondly, that the best teaching materials come from academics not commercial trainers. This course, Understanding Radio Communications, fulfils these principles generously, and I am proud to be associated with it!”
The details of the course structure can be found by going to https://www.sdrplay.com/understandingradio/
Key dates:19th November 2020, 1300 UTC – SDRplay and Course developers, Lorenzo Frezza and Paolo Marzioli from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, (DIMA), Sapienza University of Rome, will host a webinar presenting the programme and taking questions via YouTube chat.
About the SDRplay Educators Program The SDRplay Educators Program provides practical encouragement to teachers around the world so that they can use SDRplay’s SDR receivers in courses and student projects. The focus is on providing the key elements needed to teach a course: a suitable hardware platform at a reasonable price, ready access to SDRplay software, effective technical support, and excellent teaching materials that serve genuine teaching needs. The SDRplay Educators Programme is open to all members of academia, see
Hi from SDRplay. The materials are intended for university lecturers to create their own practical lecture course. They are not for individual learning. The emphasis is on making it easy for teachers to structure the combination of lecture and lab work involved. The end result is a compelling experience for the students who then receive such a course.