Category: Applications

SpyServer Now Supports RTL-SDR Direct Sampling

SDR#'s SpyServer streaming server now supports the direct sampling mode on RTL-SDR dongles and it's probably the cheapest way to set up a HF streaming server. SpyServer is a streaming server for SDR# and Airspy products. Although it's designed for Airspy products it also works well with RTL-SDR dongles.

On RTL-SDR dongles the direct sampling mode allows you to receive HF frequencies by bypassing the tuner. The dynamic range is not quite as good as using an upconverter and there are Nyquist images from sampling at 28.8 MHz centered around 14.4 MHz, but in most cases it is good enough to give people decent HF results especially if filtering is used. Normally a hardware hack is required to enable direct sampling, but our RTL-SDR Blog V3 units have direct sampling built in and ready to go just by connecting an HF antenna to the SMA port, and enabling the Q-branch direct sampling mode.

There is a sample server set up at sdr://151.20.181.90:5555.

SpyServer Direct Sampling Mode
SpyServer Direct Sampling Mode

A Tutorial on Receiving HRPT Weather Satellite Images with an SDRplay RSP2

RSP2user's HRPT equipment

Over on the SDRplay forums user 'RSP2user' has put up a quality post describing how he receives HRPT weather satellite images with his SDRplay RSP2. HRPT stands for 'High Resolution Picture Transmission' and provides a much higher resolution image compared to the APT weather satellite images typically downloaded from NOAA satellites. Somewhat confusingly the picture quality of HRPT is similar to LRPT (low rate picture transmission) which is used on the Russian Meteor M series weather satellite. HRPT provides 1.1 km resolution, whilst LRPT provides 1 km resolution.

Currently there are multiple satellites broadcasting HRPT signals including NOAA 19, NOAA 18, NOAA 15, Meteor M2, Fengyun 3B, Fengyun 3C, Metop A and Metop B.

The difference in difficulty of receiving APT and LRPT versus HRPT transmissions typically occur in the L-band at about 1.7 GHz, and requires a directive high gain antenna with tracking motor to track the satellite as it passes over. This makes these images many times more difficult to receive compared to APT and LRPT which only require a fixed position antenna for reception at the more forgiving 137 MHz.

Over on his post RSP2user shows how he uses a repurposed Meade Instruments telescope tracking mount and controller to drive the tracking of a 26 element loop Yagi antenna. A 0.36dB noise figure LNA modified with bias tee input is used to boost the signal and reduce the noise figure. The signal is received by a SDRplay RSP2 and processed on a PC with USA-satcoms HRPT decoder software, which is available for purchase by directly contacting him. The HRPT signal bandwidth appears to be about 2.4 MHz so possibly an RTL-SDR could also be used, but it might be pushing it to the limit.

If you are interested, RSP2user also uploaded an APT weather satellite image reception tutorial on another post. This tutorial shows how to build a quality quadrifilar helix antenna as well.

Receiving the HRPT signal on USA-Satcoms' HRPT decoder.
Receiving the HRPT signal on USA-Satcoms' HRPT decoder.

Building a 3D Printed LHCP Helical L-Band Feed for Inmarsat, AERO and HRPT

Thanks to Manuel a.k.a. Tysonpower for submitting his latest YouTube video tutorial about building an 1550 MHz L-band LHCP helical antenna for receiving satellite signals such as Inmarsat, AERO and HRPT.

Manuel's design is based on a 3D printed part which is used to accurately form the helical winding. The winding then mounts onto an aluminum plate and a satellite dish arm using a custom 3D printed adapter for the dish arm. In the video he uses the helical feed with an 80cm satellite dish and a standard 40mm LNB mount on the dish arm. Attached to the feed are two LNAs in series which help to lower the noise figure and reduce losses in the coax cable.

With this setup he writes that he was able to get very good AERO and Outernet reception from Alphasat (25E geostationary). He also writes that he's had good results using it for HRPT reception as well.

The 3D printing STL files and list of parts required are available on Thingiverse, and the companion video is shown below. Note that the video is narrated in German, but English subtitles are available.

[EN subs] LHCP Helix L-Band Feed - 3D Druck für eine genaue Helix

Manuel's L-Band Helical Feed
Manuel's L-Band Helical Feed

QrssPiG: Decoding QRSS on a Raspberry Pi with an RTL-SDR

QRSS is a ham communications mode that is essentially just very slow CW (morse code), with each dash/dot being broadcast for a number of seconds. With QRSS instead of audibly decoding the morse code signal, it is decoded visually via a spectrum display (or automatically by software). It is designed to be a QRP mode, which means that hams transmitting QRSS can be heard all over the world even though very low transmit power is used. 

QrssPiG is a QRSS grabber program that runs headless on a Raspberry Pi and can interface with an RTL-SDR. It automatically generates the waterfall graphs of received QRSS images, and supports uploading them via SCP or FTP. The software can also run with a HackRF, or via audio piping from another SDR or standard hardware radio.

Recently on Twitter @ON4CDJ has been trying QrssPiG with an RTL-SDR V3 and has been having good results.

SDR Programming For Kids: LimeSDR Mini with Scratch on a Raspberry Pi 3

Scratch is a visual block based programming language aimed at getting kids into programming. Recently the LimeSDR team have been working at creating a Scratch interface for their LimeSDR Mini. It is basically working as a wrapper/interface to the processing backend which is handled by LuaRadio.

The idea is to keep the barrier of entry to SDR as low as possible, by making SDR programming accessible to kids as well. The software is currently a work in progress, but they write that they are attempting to develop the Scratch blocks necessary to enable the transmission and reception of text messages. Something like that would make a great learning tool for educators.

The video demo shows Scratch and the LimeSDR running on a Raspberry Pi 3. During the demo he creates a simple 433 MHz spectrum display by connecting up several blocks.

Scratch running with a LimeSDR Mini on a Raspberry Pi
Scratch running with a LimeSDR Mini on a Raspberry Pi

QRadioLink Development Webpage Now Up

Back in September we posted [1, 2] about the QRadioLink software which is an RTL-SDR compatible digital amateur radio voice decoder and encoder program for Linux and Android (with chroot). It supports modern digital voice codecs like Codec2 and Opus. It is capable of being used with multiple SDRs, and can be used for transmitting digital voice too if you have a transmit capable SDR.

Andrian the developer recently wrote in to let us know that QRadioLink now has a website at qradiolink.org that you can follow for updates about its development. The website also explains some of the features of the software, and lists possible performance values of digital voice. The features include:

  • Receives and transmits analog voice, digital voice, low resolution video, text, IP protocol.
  • Narrow band modem with Codec2 or wideband modem and Opus.
  • Digital Modems: BPSKQPSK2FSK4FSK
  • Modes: narrow FM, SSB, digital voice, digital video, digital data
  • Formats: Codec2 700B, Codec2 1400, Opus 10 kbit/s
  • Video formats: JPEG
  • Supported hardware: Ettus USRP, RTL-SDR, HackRF, BladeRF and in general all devices supported by gr-osmosdr

Typical Receiver performance is given in the following table, with all values being measured on an R820T RTL-SDR.

Mode Condition Sensitivity (dBm)
Codec2 700B 20 db SINAD -115
Codec2 1400 20 db SINAD -112
Opus 20 db SINAD -102
Narrow FM 12 db SINAD -118

In the future Adrian hopes to expand the software to include features like VOIP integration, SSB transceiver, DTMF & CTCSS encoder/decoders, multi-channel RX, HD video, remote control and a GUI improvement.

QRadioLink Main Page

Building your Own Cell Phone Network with a Raspberry Pi and BladeRF

As part of their senior project Matthew May & Brendan Harlow of Champlain College worked on a project that involved creating their own software defined radio based portable cell phone network. If you're interested their setup is nicely documented on their project page. Basically it consists of a bladeRF software defined radio and Raspberry Pi running the YateBTS base station software. This is nothing new in terms of work done before, but the clear documentation makes it a good starting point for anyone looking at building their own SDR based cell basestation. 

A custom cell basestation may be useful for those in remote areas without commercial cell phone reception, during disasters or even just to create a type of secondary network in your home.

[Also seen on Hackaday and Motherboard]

A cell phone connected to their custom network
A cell phone connected to their custom network

Testing a 16x RTL-SDR V3 WebSDR System for the Satcom Band

Over on Twitter Denis (@uhfsatcom) has recently been teasing us with photos of his 16 dongle RTL-SDR V3 setup. The system looks like it's designed to be a satcom band WebSDR receiver. 

The satcom band is around 240 - 270 MHz and mostly consists of various military satellites that act as simple repeaters which are often hijacked by pirates. WebSDR is a piece of software that allows for online web streaming of SDR radios. Users from all over the world can listen in if made public. Denis has also uploaded a short video showing a test of 8 dongles running and receiving the satcom band on his WebSDR system.

We look forward to hearing more updates on this project!

8 rtlsdr websdr test