Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Traditionally modulated radio interfaces suffer from a wide variety of problems. Some radio interfaces get very confused if the carrier is not centered where it’s supposed to be; some radio interfaces provide a high error rate on noisy channels; some radio interfaces suffer from the "digital cliff" in receivability; some radio interfaces use a wide bandwidth, and are very susceptible to uneven channel fading; some radio interfaces cannot tolerate multipath (signals bouncing on the way to a receiver); some wideband radio interfaces get completely muted by even a single tone of interference; and the list goes on. For each of these problems, an enormous amount of research went into mitigations for AM- and FM-style modulations, and each of these mitigations became computationally intensive and difficult to scale to higher data rates. With the advent of OFDM-derived modulations, however, almost all of these problems are very efficiently solved in one fell swoop! It seems like magic, but it is actually very understandable — at least, if you aren’t trying to read it out of a dry textbook.
*About the Speaker*
In Josh's words: "I'm an engineer of varying sorts; most recently, I have been working as an ASIC architect, but also exciting to me is programming language theory, as well as the concepts behind various physical engineering challenges. Periodically I build things that I'm excited to share; one of the things that I'm proudest of is VirtexSquared, a system-on-chip on a Virtex-5. (For more on my work, see the Projects section of my site.) In 2011, I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering"
*About Teardown*
Teardown is a yearly event hosted by Crowd Supply that draws hackers, makers, and engineers from across the US (and the world) to meet together in Portland, Oregon. Teardown is about the practice of hardware: prototyping, manufacturing, testing, disassembling, and circumventing, all while having fun. Teardown attendees can expect lively talks, demos, art installations, hands-on workshops, fiendish puzzles, and lots of good food. Check it out! crowdsupply.com/teardown
*About Crowd Supply*
Crowd Supply is the crowdfunding platform of choice for engineers, hackers, designers, and idealists. We help them with the funding and support they need to deliver respectful, thoughtfully crafted, open source hardware to their delighted backers. Come see what our creators are making: https://www.crowdsupply.com!
YouTube: youtube.com/@crowd_supply
Instagram: instagram.com/crowdsupply
Discord: discord.com/invite/7p5huQ
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/crowdsupply
Mastodon: hachyderm.io/@crowdsupply
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/crowdsupply.bsky.social
#opensourcehardware #hardwarehacking #opensource #hardware #teardown #maker #hacker #electronics #crowdsupply #crowdfunding #manufacturing #radio #amfm #fouriertransform
Traditionally modulated radio interfaces suffer from a wide variety of problems. Some radio interfaces get very confused if the carrier is not centered where it’s supposed to be; some radio interfaces provide a high error rate on noisy channels; some radio interfaces suffer from the "digital cliff" in receivability; some radio interfaces use a wide bandwidth, and are very susceptible to uneven channel fading; some radio interfaces cannot tolerate multipath (signals bouncing on the way to a receiver); some wideband radio interfaces get completely muted by even a single tone of interference; and the list goes on. For each of these problems, an enormous amount of research went into mitigations for AM- and FM-style modulations, and each of these mitigations became computationally intensive and difficult to scale to higher data rates. With the advent of OFDM-derived modulations, however, almost all of these problems are very efficiently solved in one fell swoop! It seems like magic, but it is actually very understandable — at least, if you aren’t trying to read it out of a dry textbook.
*About the Speaker*
In Josh's words: "I'm an engineer of varying sorts; most recently, I have been working as an ASIC architect, but also exciting to me is programming language theory, as well as the concepts behind various physical engineering challenges. Periodically I build things that I'm excited to share; one of the things that I'm proudest of is VirtexSquared, a system-on-chip on a Virtex-5. (For more on my work, see the Projects section of my site.) In 2011, I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering"
*About Teardown*
Teardown is a yearly event hosted by Crowd Supply that draws hackers, makers, and engineers from across the US (and the world) to meet together in Portland, Oregon. Teardown is about the practice of hardware: prototyping, manufacturing, testing, disassembling, and circumventing, all while having fun. Teardown attendees can expect lively talks, demos, art installations, hands-on workshops, fiendish puzzles, and lots of good food. Check it out! crowdsupply.com/teardown
*About Crowd Supply*
Crowd Supply is the crowdfunding platform of choice for engineers, hackers, designers, and idealists. We help them with the funding and support they need to deliver respectful, thoughtfully crafted, open source hardware to their delighted backers. Come see what our creators are making: https://www.crowdsupply.com!
YouTube: youtube.com/@crowd_supply
Instagram: instagram.com/crowdsupply
Discord: discord.com/invite/7p5huQ
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/crowdsupply
Mastodon: hachyderm.io/@crowdsupply
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/crowdsupply.bsky.social
#opensourcehardware #hardwarehacking #opensource #hardware #teardown #maker #hacker #electronics #crowdsupply #crowdfunding #manufacturing #radio #amfm #fouriertransform
