Category: RTL-SDR

Meteor M-N2 now active again

According to various reports the Russian Meteor M-N2 satellite appears to be active again once more. The Meteor M N-2 is a polar orbiting Russian weather satellite that was launched in July 2014. It transmits with the LRPT protocol which allows us to receive weather satellite images with an RTL-SDR that are of a much higher resolution than the NOAA APT satellites. 

Unfortunately late last year Meteor M N-2 had some problems and LRPT transmissions were turned off for the time being. During this downtime the Russian space agency switched the LRPT transmitter on the older Meteor M N-1 satellite back on, even though the satellite was tumbling in orbit. Currently people are not reporting any signal from Meteor M N-1, so this may have been turned off, perhaps temporarily.

Now however, it seems that Meteor M N-2 has been switched back on again and various people have already successfully received its signal. If you want to receive these Meteor M N-2 weather images with an RTL-SDR dongle or other SDR then you can view the tutorial written by Happysat here.

Another Sample LRPT Image
A Sample LRPT Image from Meteor M N-2

Building a 28.8 MHz TCXO for the RTL-SDR

For accurate frequency tuning even amongst large temperature in an SDR, a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) should be used as the main oscillator. Standard RTL-SDR dongles used a frequency of 28.8 MHz and do not come with a TCXO, but for some time now we have been selling our own branded dongles that come with a TCXO built in (out of stock at the moment sorry – back in the first half of April!). If you have an older or other dongle that does not have a TCXO it can be an interesting exercise to hack one in yourself. The biggest problem though, is that 28.8MHz TCXO oscillators are not commonly found for sale in low quantities.

Over on YouTube user devttys0 (Craig) has uploaded a video that thoroughly explains the theory behind creating a home brew 28.8 MHz TCXO out of a standard non-temperature controlled 19.2 MHz oscillator. The build involves halving the frequency, and then filtering and using the third harmonic as the clock signal (19.2/2 * 3 = 28.8 MHz), as well as creating the temperature compensation circuitry.

On his blog Craig has also uploaded schematics and a frequency temperature curve he measured from his home brew TCXO.

If you wanted to make something a little easier to build then we recommend looking at our previous post which shows how an experimenter used an SI5351A voltage controlled oscillator on the RTL-SDR.

A GNU Radio Based ISDB-T and RTL-SDR Compatible 1Seg Decoder

In most parts of the world the DVB-T standard is used to air digital HDTV. In the USA the ATSC standard is used, and in China DTMB is used instead. In other countries such as Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Honduras, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Philippines, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Uruguay a third standard called “ISDB-T International” is used which is based on the Japanese ISDB-T standard. 

Digital broadcast standards used in each country.
Digital broadcast standards used in each country.

Recently a team from Uruguay has been working on creating a ISDB-T receiver in GNU Radio. With this decoder ISDB-T signals can be received with a wide bandwidth SDR (needs to be 6MHz or larger) and then decoded into a video file. Because ISDB-T is so similar to DVB-T they have based much of their code on gr-dvbt which is a GNU Radio based DVB-T decoder.

In addition to the ISDB-T decoder, they have also implemented a 1-seg decoder. 1-seg is a mobile HDTV service that exists in Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Peru. It runs on the ISDB-T system, and is called “1-seg” because it’s data occupies 1-segment of the 13-segment based ISDB-T bandwidth. It is used in small mobile TV receivers, many of which are now built directly into mobile phones sold in countries that use ISDB-T. Due to it’s much lower bandwidth requirement the 1-seg decoder can be used with an RTL-SDR dongle, and has already been tested to work.

A typical 1-seg capable Japanese mobile phone receiving digital mobile TV.
A typical 1-seg capable Japanese mobile phone receiving digital mobile TV. With the GNU Radio 1-seg decoder these transmissions can be received with an RTL-SDR.

Inspectrum: A New Tool for Analysing Captured Signals

Inspectrum is a Linux and OSX based tool that can be used for analysing captured signals. It is compatible with the IQ files generated from SDRs, such as the RTL-SDR or HackRF.

Over on YouTube user Mike has uploaded a video that demo’s the latest version of Inspectrum. He shows how the tool can be used to quickly browse the waveforms in a captured signal and how it can be used to determine various digital binary signal properties through an overlay that can be dragged to match the bit frequency of the captured signal.

This program looks like it is shaping up to be a very useful tool for those interested in reverse engineering digital signals. The Inspectrum code and installation procedure can be found at https://github.com/miek/inspectrum.

inspectrum tuner demo

Bootable Linux image with the telive TETRA decoder now available

Back in 2014 the telive decoder by sq5bpf was released which allowed RTL-SDR users to decode and listen in to unencrypted TETRA radio. TETRA is a type of digital voice and trunked radio communications system that stands for “Terrestrial Trunked Radio”. It is used heavily in many parts of the world, except for the USA.

If you are interested in TETRA decoding we have a tutorial available here, which has just been made much easier thanks to this image.

Installation of the telive decoder involves simply running a script, but this can be fairly difficult for someone with no Linux knowledge to do. So to make life easier sq5bpf has recently made available for download a bootable telive Linux image. By writing this Linux image to a 16GB USB drive you can boot straight into the Linux operating system and access telive. A live image like this helps avoid the hassle of having to partition your hard drive and install Linux, or try and set up a Virtual Machine that could be slow. The image is also useful to users who want to play around with GNU Radio as it is aksi preinstalled.

TETRA Decoding Windows
Telive TETRA Decoder

RTLSDR4Everyone: Raspberry Pi guide & choosing your first dongle

Over on his blog rtlsdr4everyone author Akos has recently uploaded three new posts. The first post is about the Raspberry Pi minicomputer and the post discusses the merits of using the Raspberry Pi with an RTL-SDR dongle. The second post provides information to help people new to RTL-SDR choose their first dongle, and weighs up options between dongles that cost $10, $20, $25, $35 and $50 dollars. Finally, the third post compares two dongles on HF performance.

Raspberry Pi3 and RTL-SDR dongles.
Raspberry Pi3 and RTL-SDR dongles.

Creating a FSK SSDV data system for High Altitude Balloons

David and Mark are building a 115 kbit/s FSK SSDV (slow scan digital video) data system for high altitude balloons. In their system, on the balloon transmit side they use a Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi camera and a RFM22B wireless transceiver modulator board to transmit the SSDV FSK signal. On the receive side they use an RTL-SDR dongle, low noise preamplifier and a GNU Radio program to demodulate the SSDV images. The first video below demonstrates the hardware and GNU Radio program and shows them receiving the SSDV signal. In the second video they demonstrate that the images can be received at low signal levels (-106dBm) as well, by heavily attenuating the signal.

115.2kbaud FSK Modem Test

115.387kbaud FSK Modem Test - Part 2

If you are interested, all their code for the SSDV system has been uploaded to https://github.com/projecthorus/HorusHighSpeed.

While testing the RTL-SDR for use in this system they also measured the noise figure of an R820T RTL-SDR dongle. The noise figure at maximum gain comes out at around 5.6 dB. By adding a low noise amplifier they reduce the measured noise figure down to 2 dB.

Testing the attenuated SSDV signal reception with an RTL-SDR.
Testing the attenuated SSDV signal reception with an RTL-SDR.

Building a simple NOAA APT Antenna out of an Umbrella

In order to optimally receive NOAA weather satellite images a special satellite antenna tuned for 137 MHz should to be built. Generally either a QFH or turnstile antenna is recommended as these receive signals coming from the sky very well. If you are interested in receiving weather satellite images from NOAA satellites with an RTL-SDR dongle then we have a tutorial available here.

While QFH and turnstile antennas are not difficult or expensive to build, they still do require a small amount of electrical and construction skills. Over on YouTube user Wanderlinse shows us a possible alternative NOAA antenna that is simply made out of an old umbrella (the video is narrated in German, but it is easy to understand from the visuals). He uses a short BNC cable with crocodile clips, and connects one clip to the spines of the umbrella, and the other to the central metal shaft. For some reason this seems to create a good antenna that receives NOAA APT signals very well. To prevent wind issues he also cuts out some holes in the umbrella fabric.

Wanderlinse also shows that he can receive other signals with this umbrella antenna too, such as long wave, medium wave, shortwave, aircraft radio and ham radio.

Regenschirm Antenne NOAA APT Umbrella Antenna (quick n dirty)