Over on the Frugal Radio YouTube channel Rob has uploaded part two of his two part series on the KrakenSDR. The KrakenSDR is our 5-channel coherent radio based on RTL-SDRs, and it can be used for applications like radio direction finding and passive radar. We successfully crowd funded the device on Crowd Supply.
In the first video Rob unboxed the KrakenSDR and set up the software. In this second video he takes the KrakenSDR out on a drive and is able to successfully locate the transmission sources of two unknown transmitters.
In the first part of the video Rob shows how he sets up his vehicle roof antennas and how he routes his cabling into the vehicle and KrakenSDR. He then shows his drivers view as he locates the site of a DMR trunked network user which ends up to be a factory plant. In his second test Rob locates a P25 transmitter site. In both tests Rob notes how he was impressed at how quickly a location was able to be determined, taking only a few minutes each time.
KrakenSDR - WOW! Amazing Direction Finding Tests : Part 2
Over on YouTube F4IPO has posted a video of him using a KrakenSDR and the KrakenSDR Android mapping app to quickly locate the source of a TETRA transmission at 427 MHz in France.
The KrakenSDR is our 5-channel coherent radio based on RTL-SDRs, and it can be used for applications like radio direction finding and passive radar. We successfully crowd funded the device on Crowd Supply.
In the video F4IPO shows a dash cam recording of his vehicle alongside a screen recording of his Android phone screen. He makes use of the auto-navigation feature which navigates him right to the radio transmit tower. He notes that the entire process to locate the transmitter only took about 5 minutes. At the end of the video he shows the antenna setup on his roof.
DragonOS creator Aaron has recently put out a few Tweets showing that he has been successful at getting his KrakenSDR to run on a Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming device made by Valve, the creators of several famous PC games and the Steam game store. It is essentially a powerful handheld computer with screen and good battery life, so it makes an excellent mobile SDR computing platform too.
Aaron notes that the output power of the Steam Desk isn't enough to power the KrakenSDR itself, but after adding an external battery pack it works well.
Compared to update rates from what I recall on the Pi, this looks to be crushing it @ 75-80 with low latency. The config page is extremely smooth and the Spectrum and DOA tabs are really responsive. @rtlsdrblogpic.twitter.com/X7IVC1AI7K
Over on the Frugal Radio YouTube channel Rob has uploaded part one of his two part series on the KrakenSDR. The KrakenSDR is our 5-channel coherent radio based on RTL-SDRs, and it can be used for applications like radio direction finding and passive radar. We successfully crowd funded the device on Crowd Supply.
In the video Rob unboxes his KrakenSDR, and explains how he will use it for radio direction finding. He shows his setup including the other required parts, like the Pi 4, and power supply, and then goes on to show the software installation process which involves burning an SD card and downloading an Android app. Next he sets up his antenna array by printing the antenna spacer and using the Excel antenna array calculator sheet.
Rob notes that Part 2 is coming in one to two weeks and will show him using the KrakenSDR in his vehicle to locate the source of a transmission.
If you weren't aware of it, KrakenSDR is our RTL-SDR spinoff project and is a 5-channel coherent RTL-SDR that we have successfully crowdfunded for over on Crowd Supply. KrakenSDR is the successor to our previous 4-channel coherent product called the KerberosSDR. With a radio like KrakenSDR that is capable of coherence between channels, interesting applications like direction finding and passive radar become possible. You can also use it as five independent RTL-SDRs should you chose to.
We wanted to note that all units preordered through the Crowd Supply crowd funding campaign are now at the Crowd Supply / Mouser warehouse, and the majority have already been shipped out to customers!
The KrakenSDR with 5x Krakentenna's for Radio Direction Finding
Additional units for new purchasers are in a mixture of production and freighting and will be available for fulfillment as soon as we can. We are constrained by supply and production time, so if you're interested in a KrakenSDR, please get your order in so that you have an earlier place in the queue.
KrakenSDR ProductionKrakenSDR Boxes
Other Recent KrakenSDR Updates
Wiki Manual: Our Wiki manual and guide is up at https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_docs/wiki. It covers topics from what you need to get started, radio direction finding theory and background, antenna array setup, KrakenSDR Web-GUI software guide, Android App guide and a Passive Radar guide.
Install Scripts, VirtualBox Images, Docker: For general vehicle based direction finding, which is the most popular application, we recommend using our premade Raspberry Pi 4 image for easy almost plug and play setup. But to ease installation on other computing devices (especially as the Pi 4 stock is non-existent at the moment due to the supply chain crisis) we've now created an automatic Linux install script and a Virtual Box image which can be run on Windows or Linux host machines. Third parties have also released a Docker container. See this page on our Wiki for more information.
Customer Feedback: We've also had some great customer feedback so far with one user submitting examples of his success in locating transmitters like a 162 MHz NOAA weather station, and various fox hunt beacons.
KrakenSDR Direction Finding with Android App
Arrow Antennas: For fixed site direction finding installs, Arrow Antennas is now shipping their 5-element dipole antenna array.
If you're interested in the latest KrakenSDR updates, please follow us on the Crowd Supply mailing list, and keep an eye out for our official krakenrf.com website releasing soon.
The South Indian SDR User Group (SI-SDR-UG) have recently held their fourth live stream conference. This conference included some interesting talks such as:
"Introduction to GNU Radio Series, Part 2" by Neel Pandeya
"Silice, a Language for Hardcoding Algorithms into FPGA Hardware" by Dr.Sylvain Lefebvre
"RF Geo-Location for Everyone" by Corey Koval
"Overview of Wireless Channels, Part 1" by Aditya Arun Kumar
In particular we were interested in Corey's talk which starts at 1:27:40 and talks about DF-Aggregator, an open source mapping program he's written for KerberosSDR, KrakenSDR and any other radio direction finding hardware that can be adapted to the software. In the talk Corey explains what DF-Aggregator is and how the clustering algorithm works.
South Indian SDR User Group (SI-SDR-UG) Live Stream Event-4
KrakenSDR is our 5-channel coherent RTL-SDR product that we have successfully crowdfunded for over on CrowdSupply. KrakenSDR is the successor to our previous 4-channel product called the KerberosSDR and will begin shipping to initial supporters within the next few months. Along with the new hardware developments, KrakenSDR comes with a new opensource codebase that is also compatible with the KerberosSDR.
With a coherent SDR like KrakenSDR or KerberosSDR, interesting applications such as radio direction finding and passive radar become possible.
Unlike the newer KrakenSDR, the KerberosSDR is unable to automatically calibrate without manual intervention on the hardware. However, it is possible to upgrade the KerberosSDR with some third party hardware switches provided by Corey Koval of Lakeshore Labs. With these switches and the new software the KerberosSDR can be made to automatically calibrate like the KrakenSDR.
Corey also has created DF-Aggregator, which is open source software that allows users to plot bearing data from one or more KerberosSDR, KrakenSDR or other radio direction finding devices on a map.
Recently, Corey has demonstrated some changes to our codebase that allow the new KrakenSDR software to directly upload to DF-Aggregator. Over on his YouTube channel, Aaron who runs the DragonOS channel has uploaded a video that shows exactly how to set this up. In the future we plan on integrating support for DF-Aggregator directly into our core code.
Thank you to everyone who has backed or been following our KrakenSDR project on Crowd Supply. The initial funding campaign has now concluded with almost 5x our minimum funding goal! If you missed out, please don't worry as the product is will still be available for sale on Crowd Supply at the campaign price, but later orders may receive units from the second batch produced a few months after the first.
Thanks to the successful funding campaign we now have all the required parts on order and we expect the factory to receive them in a few weeks time. The final confirmation prototype is in production now, finishing touches to the enclosure are being worked on, a QC process is being developed and EU compliance certification and logistics details are being worked through.
At the same time work on on the DFing software is continuing to progress as well. If you are testing the software with the older KerberosSDR units, please note that the software is still in beta and that a thorough reading of the documentation is required to understand the DAQ control parameters. As direction finding with an SDR can involve learning a lot of new technical information, we are aiming to significantly simply the knowledge that is needed to understand the DAQ parameters, and hope to have a simplified version released with a tutorial by mid-December. So if you have a Kerberos, and are struggling with the setup, please kindly wait until the official release, unless you are interested in learning the nitty gritty technical details.
Recently we have also been working on improvements to the intermittent signal squelch handling and we are also working on multichannel DFing capabilities. We have a new developer starting work on a multiplatform networked mapping program too.
We are also looking to sponsor some accelerator projects such an GNU Radio integration and beam forming investigations for applications like radio astronomy. If you have DSP programming skills, and you're interested in helping on this, or have the DSP skills and interest in developing another project, please email us at [email protected] with details.
