Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who writes:
There was a segment on the latest episode of AWR’s Wavescan (9 April 2017) about the Titus II DRM receiver recorded during the recent HFCC meeting in Jordan. In it, it was stated that the shipment of the first 1500 units was expected at the end of March or by the first half of April. Included some discussion of added shielding to prevent digital noise and the high-sensitivity of the receiver compared to other DRM units. Streaming and download of the Wavescan episode is available here:
http://awr.org/program/engmi_wav-2/
Many thanks for the tip, Richard!
BTW, not sure where it is stated this is using RTL-SDR or the RTL2832U tuner. The specified coverage is identical to the SDRPlay, which uses a Mirics flexible tuner. Much higher quality than the RTL2832U.
PantronX again gone silent on this.
Too bad.
O ye of little faith. Doubting Thomases? 😉 But agreed: Would be nice to have a further update.
Yes, an update would be good about now. Perhaps one update every two months on their website would be great. I’ve a hunch this radio will come to fruition–obviously, the production process is taking longer than anticipated. Fortunately, they’ve not asked for crowdfunding–they’re doing this on their own dime–so you won’r find me complaining.
I believe they were at the NAB with their prototype. Can anyone confirm?
Vaporware.
This thing doesn’t exist, period. Show me one for sale.
Ditto. I’m From the Show Me state
Yeah the price and the potential to hax is what interested me. A rcvr that can pick up almost any frequency and fits in your backpack?? Cool. Preppers will be interested.
Personally I am excited by the project because of price point and because it is something focused on our radio listening hobby! Heck, some tablets and phones don’t even allow FM to be played even though the hardware is right there in the phone!
Is it going to be on the level of a high-end tablet costing $700 or more? Of course not, and I would not buy a tablet at that price anyway. But at a reasonable price point with built-in SDR capabilities, you bet I am interested!
I suspect there is a fairly steep technology hurdle to be overcome in terms of RFI and random circuit interference, so the testing must be quite thorough – I would much rather wait for something to be made right than to have something thrown out onto the market which is doomed from the start.
Small company innovation – you gotta love it!!
The Titus II was first publicly announced in late August last year and the pre-order form published mid September.
I enjoyed the discussion on Wavescan. Let’s see how PantronX’s receiver fares in the marketplace. The manufacturer seems to have a sound development plan.
The middle of April is here. Where can I buy one? 😉
been on the pre order list well over a year. i’ll believe it when i see it
That’s exactly it Rich. It’s a low powered Android tablet with a built-in RTL-SDR.
Unless they’ve updated the SoC beyond their original spec, its CPU (& system memory) struck me as a bit underpowered, and the resolution of the touchscreen seemed a bit too low for fitting enough data on screen.
I went from wanting one on release day, to thinking about building my own with a pair of RTL-SDRs + a Raspberry Pi 3 as the brains.
You do know the RPi3 CPU & RAM specs are the same as the Titus II, don’t you? 😉 Underpowered for a game/app tablet, but more than sufficient for even the fairly processor-hungry DReaM. I’ve run the Android port on less-capable tablets than that, although the waterfall display brought it to its knees.
That said, as others have pointed out it’s the price-point & potential flexibility that’s interesting…
I remember the specs being lower – could have sworn they were talking quad-core Arm 7 @1Ghz. Probably a brain-fart on my end, but if they bumped up the SoC, that’s awesome!
Thanks for the correction.
As to my actual homebrew’d one, I have a sample Helio x25 board that I got through work, that would make a fantastic brain for it.
So when are they available? I’ve been waiting over a year.
Can’t wait till someone gets their hands on one of these to see what it’s made of.
I suspect an Android operating system but that remains to be seen. If so, it could double as an internet radio with the Tunein app and could run other decoding apps for ham radio, shortwave etc. Receiver is most certainly is RTL based with a converter of sorts which could possibly be upgraded and modified along the way.
We shall see..
Rich
I hope they have a good user interface. this will make or break the deal.
A bit bizarre looking. How do you use it? Touch an app and a front panel with a tuning dial appears? Or is it receive only the stations Kim Jong-il want you to hear? Made in North Korea? Front panel is clueless as how it is used. No, volume control, tone controls, USB/LSB/CW.