Want to build a radio that can receive (and often transmit) on pretty much the entire radio spectrum? Well, you can. This article from Wired News tells you how and why, and you can get the hardware here.
"From our perspective, radio devices behave very differently -- a global positioning system gadget doesn't look like a TV doesn't look like a CB set, even if they are all radios. They are single-purpose machines that use small bits of radio spectrum to do very specific tasks -- about as far from the general-purpose personal computer as you can get. But there's no reason they have to be.
Most of the required components of a radio are the same and can be generalized. And with Moore's law making processors fast enough, much of a radio's function can be done with software.
Building a general radio that can receive and transmit, and attaching it to a software system that can fill in the gaps of what we normally think of as radio, is kind of like the Enterprise's deflector dish: Give engineering 20 minutes and it can do anything the captain needs to move the plot along. One of Ettus' USRPs, with the right daughterboards and radio software, can capture FM, read GPS, decode HDTV, transmit over emergency bands and open garage doors."
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