What are the major differences between a SDR and a traditional radio that I would immediately notice?
There are no knobs and buttons on the transceiver to manipulate. All of the radio control is done via software, so functions such as changing frequency, selecting filters, changing bands are no longer initiated on the radio hardware itself. The hardware is less complex due to the elimination of circuits that would normally be in a traditional radio which provide basic radio functions are now handled by the SDR software. Also, when very high quality A/D and D/A converters are used, an SDR will out perform all traditional radios on both transmit and receive.
