Category: Tutorial

Installing SDR# on OSX

SDR# is the most commonly used Software Defined Radio receiver GUI that is used with the RTL-SDR. Natively, it runs on Windows, but since it is written in C#, it can also run on Mac OSX and Linux with Mono. Installing SDR# on OSX using Mono is a little more complicated compared to simply running it on Windows however.

To help with this, Jan Szumiec has written a simple guide on installing SDR# using Mono on OSX. The guide includes the steps of installing Mono, the Xamarin Studio Mono IDE, the rtl-sdr libraries and then compiling the SDR Sharp sources and symlinking the Mono runtime to the native libraries.

Update: This is no longer possible as the SDR# code is not available anymore.

SDR Sharp on OSX
SDR Sharp on OSX

New RTL-SDR Book for Beginners

Recently this year, Akos from the SDR for Mariners blog has put out a bunch of RTL-SDR tutorials aimed at complete beginners – that is people without any radio knowledge at all.

Akos has now gone ahead and created an ebook titled “Radio On A Tight Budget: RTL-SDR For Everyone”, which is purchasable from Amazon. Akos has mentioned that his book is not just his blog in book form, but something new. The blurb is as follows

Hands-on guide to hear to world using the 10-dollar RTL stick. Easy-to understand text covers software installation, antennas, noise reduction, guides from shortwave to airplane information reception – and many more. Diagrams and photos help the beginner, common tools and materials used: no soldering or expensive gear used. Useless tales, anecdotes, complicated theoretical explanations left out: only relevant information included.
If you ever had problems setting up the RTL stick, wish to significantly improve your reception or simply want to hear airplanes talk to tower, receive AIS information on a yacht or track airplanes, this book is for you.
Radio On A Tight Budget: RTL-SDR For Everyone
Radio On A Tight Budget: RTL-SDR For Everyone

ADS-B Virtual Radar RTL-SDR Tutorial in the ARRL QST Magazine

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) a.k.a The American National Association for Amateur Radio has put online a freely available ADS-B tutorial featured in their monthly QST magazine, written by Robert Nichols, W9RAN. The tutorial focuses on using an R820T RTL-SDR dongle to receive ADS-B signals, and then using computer software to decode the signals and create a virtual aircraft radar.

ADS-B is a protocol used by most modern aircraft to broadcast their position and altitude which is determined via GPS. ADS-B is intended to supplement and eventually replace traditional radar.

In this ADS-B tutorial, they show how to create a weatherproofed 1090 MHz collinear antenna from RG-6/U coax and PVC pipe and how to use the ADSB# and virtual radar server software to decode and visualize aircraft positions, like a radar.

If interested, we also have an ADS-B virtual radar tutorial that can be found here.

ADS-B Virtual Air Radar Tutorial by the ARRL
ADS-B Virtual Air Radar Tutorial by the ARRL

SDRSharp Video Tutorial

If you’re new to the world of low cost software defined radio, and have just been through our Quickstart guide, this YouTube tutorial video by Clayton Smith on using the SDR# program may be useful to you.

In the video Clayton explains how to use SDR# and some of its many features, how to calibrate the RTL-SDR offset in the software,  and he also shows how to receive a few interesting signals in his area.

Getting started with SDR# and an RTL SDR tuner

Tutorial: Creating an FM Receiver in GNURADIO using an RTL-SDR source

Over on instructables.com, user v3l0c1r4pt0r has created an instructable that shows step by step instructions on how to create an FM receiver in GNU Radio using an RTL-SDR and GNU Radio Companion. His instructable explains a bit about the theory of what is required to decode an FM signal, and shows which GNU Radio blocks are required, and how to connect them up.

GNU Radio Tutorial
GNU Radio FM Receiver

RTL-SDR Running on an Aria G25

Blogger and ham radio enthusiast F4GKR has written a brief tutorial post on his blog showing how he got an RTL-SDR working with an Aria G25, and in another post some benchmarking results. The Aria G25 is a very small low cost, Linux capable embedded computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi.

He was able to get rtl_tcp running with a 2 MSps sampling rate and found it used about 60% of the CPU.

Aria G25 running the RTL-SDR

Replacing the Low Quality 28.8 MHz Oscillator on the RTL-SDR

The 28.8 MHz crystal oscillator on the RTL-SDR is known for being low quality. A low quality crystal means that the frequency tuning can be off by a few KHz and can cause the tuned frequency to drift over time.

In this article of the GBPPR ‘Zine (kindly mirrored by superkuh), the authors show a tutorial on how a cheap high quality 14.4 MHz temperature compensated crystal oscillator can be combined with a frequency doubler circuit to create a high quality 28.8 MHz clock source, which can then be used to replace the low quality oscillator on the RTL-SDR. A 14.4 MHz oscillator is used as high quality 28.8 MHz oscillators appear to be rare.

Frequency Doubler Circuit

Setting up an APRS iGate with the RTL-SDR

Over on Pawel Janowski’s blog (SQ7MRU) a writeup on how to set up an APRS iGate receiver with an RTL-SDR and cubieboard mini computer has been posted. The article has been written in Polish, but can be translated using Google Translate.

APRS stands for Automatic Packet Reporting System and is usually used by Amateur radio operators to broadcast the current GPS coordinates of something such as a transmitter site/car/boat or high altitude amateur balloon. These APRS packets are received by an iGate and then put onto the internet. Check out aprs.fi for an example.

To create an APRS iGate, Pawel runs a RTL-SDR compatible python program called pymultimonaprs which is used to receive and broadcast the APRS data on to the internet.

aprs_fi_rtlsdr