I made a short reply as to one reason why I thought that the fancy radios that monitor their own output might be cheaper now or in the not too distant future. I'm grateful for the reply, but I think you've read too much into my little one-line comment.

>Wideband radios are not all that new.

No, but super cheap ones are.

>It's not like tweaking a VFO is really a technical challenge

Well, it's a little bit of a challenge for most (especially non-hams), but sure, there's no magic involved.

>The FCC tracks you down and you get a pink slip telling you that they know what you're up to.

I've heard so many scary stories about the FCC, and yet their enforcement actions page is relatively empty; and hams are always heard complaining about both persistent abusive behavior that the FCC either does little, or is powerless to stop. My impression is that violators, both abusers and unintentional get a lot of chances to correct their behavior; and that FCC enforcement is mostly a paper tiger that can do a bit of damage to someone who wants to comply (for the most part), and can do very little or nothing to stop the worst abusers.

Enforcement actions: https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/AmateurActions/Welcome.html

Warning Letters: http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/AmateurActions/Legacy.html

>You both underestimate what older radios can do, and overstate what newer radios can do relative to them.

I don't think so. I know that these features, or reasonable substitutes for them exist/have existed for some time, but I also know that their widespread use was limited, primarily due to cost. Economies of scale in manufacturing mean that since a TV tuner chip which produced in the billions can be used as an SDR, now there are lots of very inexpensive SDR units available for purchase. For higher end equipment, there is also the fact that DSP tech has advanced at a pretty incredible pace enabling things like the ~$300 dollar 100MHz oscilloscopes in my lab and also the 500MHz scopes in my lab that didn't cost more than our minivan. Sure, many (maybe even most) of the things that can be done with an SDR can also be done with solder and wires, but an SDR can do any/all of them. A super cheap (as in < $10) SDR can act as a frequency analyzer (to use GP's term) can compliment a high quality analog radio design. I suspect that one could add that kind of feature to an analog radio and keep the total additional cost under $10.

>The reasons that you didn't see people transmitting off-band before was primarily social, not technological.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. There simply isn't any/much of a problem, and where the problems do exist the FCC is largely toothless anyway (and that's arguably a good thing). The FCC sees the potential for cheap consumer equipment that can easily be made non-compliant; they know that they haven't the resources to enforce the rules against millions of people and want to simply prevent it from happening. There is a reason that the FCC has so little enforcement is because nobody who knows them, likes them.

>FCC was flipping out about people intercepting cellphone calls on omniband radios - 15 years ago.

Another reason to dislike the FCC, they made a rule which was almost totally ineffective, and today is completely moot; because the technology prevents the problem that the rule was supposed to prevent. The cost of scanners/radios went up, and some good products were taken off the market and replaced with junk, or simply not replaced. Yay FCC.

> Omni SDR was around 10 years ago too, with the same capabilities (see: GNU Radio), it just cost more than $10 for a rig.

A lot more than $10, and you had less "SD" for your SDR because your PC and the software was simply less capable. Now, a relative noob can start from practically nothing and point and click his/her way to receiving any number of things in an afternoon.