Over on YouTube user SA6 HAM has uploaded a video showing how to modify a Kenwood TS-570D so that an RTL-SDR dongle can be connected to its first IF stage in order to create a low cost panadapter. A panadapter is a device that allows you to visually view RF signals with an FFT or waterfall display on a regular analogue hardware radio. Some radios have IF output ports on the case, but older radios tend to need internal modification to expose the IF as a port.
In the video SA6 HAM opens up his Kenwood TS-570D radio and shows exactly where to connect the RTL-SDR dongle’s antenna connector on the inside.
Kenwood TS-570D Panadapter modification with an 820T2 RTL SDR dongle
The team behind the Airspy software defined radio (as well has the popular SDR# software package) have just released the SpyVerter upconverter for sale. Upconverters shift HF frequencies (0 – 30 MHz) “up” by a fixed amount, giving receivers that can’t tune that low like the RTL-SDR and the Airspy the ability to receive HF signals.
The SpyVerter extends reception all the way down to DC and has a 60 MHz low pass filter. Its main selling point is its H-Mode architecture which provides excellent IIP3 performance. This basically means that strong HF signals are unlikely to cause overloading in the up-conversion stage. The good IIP3 performance should improve HF reception when compared to other upconverters even with lower end SDR’s like the RTL-SDR. The reason is that when hit by strong HF signals many other upconverters will overload in the upconversion mixing stage, before even reaching the SDR, thus requiring the need for attenuators or antennas with less gain.
Another selling point is its good performance down to DC, making it ideal for VLF reception.
SpyVerter is designed for optimal performance with the Airspy and can be powered directly by the Airspy’s bias tee. However, RTL-SDR users can also use the SpyVerter by powering it through the micro USB connector, or by using it with one of our RTL-SDR Blog units with the activatable bias tee.
The SpyVerter sells for $59 USD and comes in a metal enclosure with three bonus SMA adapters. There is a $9 USD discount for Airspy owners.
At these prices combined with its claimed performance and metal enclosure we now generally recommend the SpyVerter over any other upconverter. The designers of the SpyVerter have sent us a sample unit and we will review it after testing it out over the next few weeks, but our initial tests already show good performance.
The international space station (ISS) is currently testing transmission of a DVB-S digital video signal. At the moment only a blank test pattern is transmitted, but one day they hope to be able to transmit live video properly for the purposes of making live contact with astronauts, and possibly to stream video of scientific experiments, extravehicular activities, docking operations, or simply live views of the Earth from space.
I have been able to receive DVB-S broadcasts from the ISS (known as HamVideo or HamTV) with a high-gain 2.4 GHz WiFi antenna ($50), a custom downconverter ($65), a R820T2 dongle, and a software demodulator (Edmund Tse’s gr-dvb). I used to think this could only be done with much more expensive SDR hardware.
It is commonly known that rtl-sdr dongles do not have enough bandwidth to capture mainstream satellite TV broadcasts, but the ISS happens to transmit DVB-S at only 2Msymbols/s in QPSK with FEC=1/2, which translates to 2 MHz of RF bandwidth (2.7 MHz including roll-off).
Before anyone gets too excited I should mention that:
This was done during a favourable pass of the ISS (elevation 85°)
With a fixed antenna, only a few seconds worth of signal can be captured
Demodulation is not real-time (on my low-end PC)
Currently the ISS only transmits a blank test pattern.
I now believe the BoM will be less than $50 by the time the ISS begins broadcasting interesting stuff on that channel.
Pabr uses a 2.4 GHz parabolic WiFi antenna to receive the signal. He writes that ideally a motorized antenna tracker would be used with this antenna to track the ISS through the sky. Also since the DATV signal is transmitted at around 2.4 GHz, a downconverter is required to convert the received frequency into one that is receivable with the RTL-SDR. The DATV decoder is available on Linux and requires GNU Radio.
Over on YouTube user London Shortwave has posted a video showing his antenna phasing system in action with a Funcube Dongle Pro+ and SDR# running on a tablet. An antenna phaser reduces unwanted noise by using two antennas and positioning one “noise” antenna so that it receives the unwanted noise strongly, and positioning the main antenna to receive the desired signal as best as possible. Then the signals are combined by a phaser unit in such as way that the unwanted noise is subtracted from the desired signal.
The Spyverter is a new high performance upconverter that is being developed by the team behind the Airspy software defined radio and the SDR# software. It is designed to be used together with the Airspy, but it should also be compatible with other SDRs as well. The main claimed advantages over other upconverters will be it’s low loss and high IIP3 performance, which means that the Spyverter will not saturate in the presence of strong signals as easily as other upconverters.
Recently W9RAN, who is involved in the design and testing of the Spyverter uploaded some demo videos of the Spyverter + Airspy combo in action. The first video shows how the Spyverter when used together with the Airspy and SDR# allows for seamless tuning between VLF, HF through to VHF/UHF (no need to set any offsets).
Seamless tuning of SDR# with AIrspy & Spyverter
The next video shows the Spyverter + Airspy combo working during a RTTY contest on 40M with very densely packed signals, some of which were very strong.
W9RAN demo of Spyverter in 40 meter RTTY contest
W9RAN (ranickel on YouTube) also has additional Spyverter + Airspy videos on YouTube for viewing if you are interested.
Recently amateur radio hobbyist WB20SZ wrote in to us to let us know about his work with creating an easy to build receive only APRS internet gateway (IGate) with a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR dongle. The process involves using WB20SZ’s “Dire Wolf” software which is a free Linux based APRS encoder/decoder. He writes that it can be used to observe APRS traffic, as a digipeater, APRStt gateway or Internet Gateway (IGate). Setting up the APRS IGate is a simple matter of piping the received APRS audio from rtl_fm into the direwolf software. Instructions for installing direwolf can be found here.
APRS stands for Automatic Packet Reporting System and is a packet radio protocol used by radio amateurs to broadcast real time data such as messages, announcements, weather station reports and sometimes the location of vehicles. If an APRS station has a GPS attached to it, the broadcasts will also contain the GPS coordinates. Internet Gateways or IGates are repeaters that are used to receive messages from a local radio and pass them on via the internet to a transmit capable IGate repeater anywhere in the world. To run an IGate you should be a radio amateur with a callsign. A global aggregation of APRS broadcasts received by IGates can be seen at aprs.fi.
Tim Havens is an avid CW operator on the ham bands and primarily uses his Yaesu FTDX-5000 transceiver for this purpose. At the same time he also uses a software defined radio coupled with an upconverter as a panadapter by connecting the SDR to the 9 MHz IF output of the Yaesu.
To get around this Tim decided to use the Airspy in a special configuration. First he used the external clock input of the Airspy to connect to his Jackson Labs “Fury” GPSDO. This device uses GPS satellites to generate a very accurate 10 MHz clock, with almost zero drift. Secondly, to get around the need for an upconverter with it’s own frequency drift he used the ADC1 direct sampling input ports on the Airspy to connect to the 9MHz IF output of his FTDX-5000 through an extra band pass filter and LNA.
Tim writes that he will soon update his post with more images and a video.
Airspy with external GPS clock and ADC1 output connected.
Simon (G0FCU) has been using his HackRF Blue to transmit DVB-S video captured from his video camcorder. In the ham radio hobby there is something called digital amateur television (DATV) in which amateurs transmit digital video over radio to repeaters. Simon writes that in the UK DATV is usually transmitted at above 1.2 GHz and in the DVB-S format, which is the same format used by some satellite TV services.
Although there are dedicated DATV radios, Simon decided that he wanted to use the HackRF Blue as the radio for transmitting his own DATV signals. To do this he uses the software dvgrab to grab the video stream from the camera, then passes it to ffmpeg to compress the raw video into MPEG-2 and then uses a GNU Radio program called gr-dvbs to use the HackRF to transmit the DVB-S stream at 1000 MHz.
To test that his signal was transmitting correctly, Simon then used a standard DVB-S satellite TV with the LNB bypassed.
