The invention in the simplest form is a self-booting software defined radio (SDR) module which may be embodied as a PCMCIA, Compact Flash, or other plug in form factor module. The performance characteristics of the module, may include the radio frequency (RF) carrier frequency, instantaneous RF bandwidth, carrier modulation and demodulation, symbol coding and decoding, security, and network protocol that can be altered and saved by means of computer software transferred to the module from a host device such as a cellular telephone, personal digital assistant, lap top computer or other programming device.