It is expected that software receivers will be widely available for radio communication, broadcasting and radio monitoring applications because they are able to be equipped with multimode, multirate and multiband functions in a single hardware platform. This paper describes the basic techniques required for software receivers for both hardware and software. The evaluation items and methods were studied and some evaluations done with an experimental software receiver model fabricated for radio monitoring applications. Future concepts in radio communication, broadcasting and radio monitoring applications where software receivers are thought to be suitable, were studied, and problems for realization identified.