Building an OpenWebRX Server with an RTL-SDR Blog V3 for HF Monitoring

Thank you to Ramadhan (YD1RUH) who has put together a brief set of commands showing how to quickly get setup with OpenWebRX and an RTL-SDR Blog V3. OpenWebRX is a web based SDR program that allows users to use their SDR over a network or internet connector. It is compatible with several SDRs including the RTL-SDR.

 The installation is based on Ubuntu, and uses docker for the install. He also shows how to set up the OpenWebRX configuration file so that it will use the Q-branch direct sampling mode in RTL-SDR Blog V3 dongles for HF reception.

A demonstration of the result can be seen on Ramadhan's public OpenWebRX page. You can select between the various enabled HF bands in the lower left.

OpenWebRX HF reception running on an RTL-SDR Blog V3 dongle.
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Phil AB9IL

That’s a pretty nice setup! It has been a while since I’ve looked at OpenWebRX sites outside of the KiwiSDR ecosystem, and it was enjoyable to tune some signals on Ramadhan’s RTL-SDR. Switching bands and modes was easy, as was adjusting the waterfall colors. Some front end filtering ahead of the SDR would clean up the spectrum nicely on 30 meters, as there were some aliased sigs getting into the radio.

As plentiful as RTL-SDRs are, along with lightweight and inexpensive single-board computers, there could be multiple hundreds of these set up around the world. V3 dongles are less plentiful but perform so much better than run-of-the-mill units sold all over the internet.