Decoding Flex 1600 Pager Traffic with RTL-SDR Video Tutorial
YouTube user NeedSec has posted a useful tutorial video showing how to set up decoding of FLEX 1600 pager traffic on a Windows system using PDW, SDRSharp and an RTL-SDR USB stick.
Category: Applications
Receiving a 10GHz Beacon with RTL-SDR and an Avenger LNBF
In this video YouTube user feri67000 shows reception of a 10 GHz amateur beacon over 26km using the RTL-SDR, and an ‘Avenger LNBF‘, which we believe is this one which only costs $11. The LNB within the Avenger antenna converts the 10 GHz signal into a frequency that is receivable by the R820T RTL-SDR.
Also, in this video by YouTube user EA5KGD reception of a voice signal is shown using the RTL-SDR and Avenger LNBF.
HackRF Decoding PICO High Altitude Balloons (HAB)
Blogger g0hww shows us how he used his HackRF to decode Pico high altitude balloon (HAB) transmissions using gqrx and dl-fldigi. Pico balloons are small party sized high altitude balloons, typically launched by hobbyists. They have enough lift to carry a small sized ~60g payload. Since they are so small, they are usually exempt from requiring permission from the authorities, unlike full sized weather balloons.
The cheaper RTL-SDR could also be used to track these balloons.
RTL-SDR as a Cheap Panadapter
For people already with expensive ham radios, the RTL-SDR can be used as a cheap panadapter. A panadapter is device that allows you to visually see the RF spectrum and waterfall being received by the ham radio. There are multiple (expensive) commercial panadapters available, but combined with a PC or laptop, the RTL-SDR will work just as well.
In this video YouTube user akdude47 shows a tutorial on setting up the RTL-SDR as a panadapter for a Yaesu FT-857. The setup involves connecting the IF output of the radio to the RTL-SDR, and putting in some settings into HDSDR.
Receiving the FO-29 Amateur Satellite with RTL-SDR
In this video YouTube user Roland Zurmely (PY4ZBZ) shows communications with the FO-29 amateur satellite using his RTL-SDR and a 6 element UHF Yagi antenna. The Fuji-OSCAR-29 (FO-29 a.k.a JAS-2) is an amateur radio satellite that allows voice communication via single side band, and has a voice downlink frequency of 435.8 MHz and uplink frequency of 145.9 MHz.
In this video, the RTL-SDR was used as the satellite receiver, and a conventional FT857 radio with 4 element VHF Yagi was used to transmit to the satellite uplink.
RTL1090 Beta 2 Updated to Build 102
Popular ADS-B decoding software for the RTL-SDR RTL1090 has updated it’s beta version to build 102. This new build has the following improvements
– Decoder improved by brute force 1-bit error correction and brute force DF11 and DF17 override for unknown DFs. This may be tough stuff for slow computers. If your computer slows down considerably return to a previous version please.
– Tabs introduced – List/Table selection moved to Tabs.
– Stats tab added: this brings back the previous status bar info about USB packets per second.
– II/SI tab added. This tab adds the ability to quickly scan the Mode-S interrogator codes around. A “radar1090.txt” file can be added to the rtl1090 folder that holds II/SI code decodings. A sample file is attached. The II/SI collection can be reset by a right mouse click action. The recently seen codes and the last aircraft responding with that code are display in red onwhite.
– Context menu (right mouse click) for text window, “listhold” established by menu selection, revoked by mouse click.
You can download the latest beta from http://rtl1090.com
RTL-SDR Receiving ISS EVA Comms
Over on the Radio Antics blog, Andrew has posted about how he was able to receive Russian International Space Station communications during an EVA (Extravehicular Activity aka Spacewalk). He used a simple random wire antenna mounted in his loft and an RTL-SDR with SDRSharp tuned at 143.625 MHz.
See his recorded video below.
Decoding Pagers on the Raspberry Pi with RTL-SDR
Hackaday has brought to attention a tutorial written on the Raspberry Pi forums by Sonny_Jim showing how to decode pager transmissions on the Raspberry Pi. In the tutorial he also shows how to set up a web server to be able to view the decoded transmissions in a web browser.
He uses a RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi and pipes the output of rtl_fm into the multimonNG software to decode the messages.