May 7, 2021

CENOS Launches Affordable And Easy-to-use Simulation Software For Antenna Design

Over the past few months we have posted a few times about the beta of CENOS, a new antenna modelling and simulation design package. Recently CENOS has exited it's beta testing phase, and they have put out a press release about the first release.

Of most importance is that the software is affordable for hobbyist's, with a 10-day free trial and subscription price of €20 (US$25) per month for hobbyist use (no live engineering support).

Electromagnetics simulation software company CENOS (Riga, Latvia) continues on its mission to democratize simulation software by releasing its newest application designed for radio frequency and antenna design engineers. CENOS released its first electromagnetics simulation software focused on the induction heating applications in 2017 and it proved to be a success - mainly because of the simple and straightforward user experience and the specialization and focus on a single industry. After a year of development and testing in close cooperation with its avid beta-tester community, the Antenna Design simulation software was finally released for public use at the end of April, 2021.

CENOS Antenna Design is an intuitive FEM-based software that helps engineers to speed up RF antenna design, it solves Maxwell’s equations directly with no simplifications or limitations. Therefore, the results provided by CENOS are accurate for wide ranges of geometries and antennas, including very complex geometries. For instance, the software is good for high Q, multi-port simulations with arbitrary 3D structures. It is specialized for the simulation of microstrip- and wire-type antennas that include various geometries (fractal, helix, horn, loop, slot, patch, spiral, and others), as well as dipole and monopole antennas.

CENOS co-founder Dr. phys. Mihails Scepanskis: “Two years ago we launched a specialized induction heating simulation software to cover the growing demand in the SME sector - smaller equipment manufacturers, tooling shops, and production plants. Following the success in the low-frequency applications, we decided to move to the microwaves with the same mission - to democratize the simulation software, make it accessible for every engineer. I believe, it is an awkward situation in the market - engineers have to choose either to pay tons of money for enterprise-type generic simulation packages to utilize just a fraction of their functionality or to use over-simplified 1D approximations with the hobbyist-level software. With CENOS we have leveraged the power of open-source algorithms to break the status quo - to deliver a full-functionality FEM software for price-sensitive business users and individuals.”

CENOS Antenna Design is free to try for 10 days, after which the users can choose from the two subscription plans - for an individual or business use, starting from 20 euros per month ($25). The business version includes the features that help to automate and speed up simulation processes and has more integrations with the existing software and, most importantly, it has a live customer support through the chat and video calls. More features are planned to be added in 2021 and thus the prices may be increased over time, so now it is a good moment to subscribe and get all the future updates for a lower price.

The company name CENOS stands for “Connecting ENgineering Open Source” highlighting the new software approach they invented. It is a platform that connects the best of community-driven open-source algorithms into one seamless user experience and since it is a desktop software - the data do not leave the owner’s computer. CENOS was founded in 2017 by 3 PhDs in physics and mathematics who committed themselves to the democratization of the simulation software by making it easy, affordable, and secure for every engineer. CENOS is a startup, funded by the leading San Francisco early-stage investor ‘500 Startups’, the leading B2B European accelerator Startup Wise Guys, and the cohort of the Baltic business angels.

CENOS offers a 10-day trial, follow the link to sign up: https://www.cenos-platform.com/antenna-design

Tweet54

Reddit1

Vote

55 Shares

May 6, 2021

Raspberry-NOAA V2: Raspberry Pi Automated NOAA and Meteor Weather Satellite Capture

Raspberry-NOAA is open source code and a set of scripts that allows you to set up a Raspberry Pi as an automated NOAA and Meteor weather satellite station with an SDR like an RTL-SDR. The software makes use of the Raspberry Pi version of WXtoIMG and meteor_decoder for decoding the satellites, a program called predict for predicting satellite passes, and various automatically generated cron scripts to schedule recording and processing.

Recently V2 has been released by Justin Karimi who builds on the work of the original creators. It seems that the webpanel has been upgraded and made mobile friendly, as well as many more enhancements that can be seen on the Release page notes.

Tweet21

Vote

21 Shares

May 6, 2021

Receiving Unintentionally Radiated Signals from the Computer System Bus with an RTL-SDR

Back in 2018 we first posted about "System Bus Radio" which is code and a web based app that allows you to transmit RF directly from your computer without any transmitting hardware. It works on the principle of manipulating the unintentional RF radiation produced by a computers system bus by sending instructions that can produce different AM tones. The idea is to demonstrate how unintentional radiation from computers could be a security risk.

Recently the creator of System Bus Radio has uploaded a guide on receiving the generated signals with an RTL-SDR. He recommends using an RTL-SDR with upconverter, balun and an AM loop antenna. He then shows how he was able to receive the signals from his MacBook Pro M1, noting that he was able to receive audible signals from several inches away at frequencies between 63 kHz to 5.5 MHz.

System Bus Radio received with an RTL-SDR and upconverter.

Tweet20

Reddit1

Vote

21 Shares

May 5, 2021

Decoding NRSC5 HD Radio with GNU Radio and a HackRF

Thank you to "LikWidChz" for submitting his tutorial on receiving and decoding multiple NRSC5 (HD Radio) channels with the help of GNU Radio, a HackRF and the NRSC5 decoder. He writes:

I wanted a way to utilize GnuRadio for working with HD radio. There are no decoder blocks from within GnuRadio to perform this decoding without an external application. This write up is how I was able to split up some signal and supply NRSC5 what it requires to perform the decode.

My goal was to capture some slice of spectrum and "channelize it" so I can perform multiple HD radio decodes at once.

In this linked zip file we have uploaded his GRC file, and his tutorial PDF, which fully explains each GNU Radio block used, and how to use the NRCS5 decoder along with the flowgraph. He also notes that if anyone wants to get in touch with him he is idling on IRC in #gnuradio and ##rtlsdr on freenode under the nickname "LikWidChz".

Tweet15

Vote

15 Shares

May 5, 2021

MagicSDR: A new Android and iOS RTL_TCP Client

Unlike Android devices, Apple iOS devices can't run RTL-SDRs directly through their USB ports. However, they can still connect to another networked device such as a PC or Raspberry Pi running an rtl_tcp server. In the past we've seen two rtl_tcp clients for iOS released [1 , 2].

Now a third client called "MagicSDR" has just been released, and this one is cross platform for Android and iOS. The app is free on the Android store (with in-app purchases), and costs US$14.99 on the Apple App Store. The developer writes:

MagicSDR makes it possible to interactively explore RF spectrum using panadapter and waterfall visualization, demodulate and play AM, SSB, CW, NFM, WFM signals, collect frequencies. Built on the principle of plug-in architecture, MagicSDR - powerful and flexible next-generation SDR (software-defined radio) application. Typical applications are dx-ing, ham radio, radio astronomy, and spectrum analysis. Explore the spectrum everywhere!

MagicSDR processes signals that are streamed over the local network from the rtl_tcp server, which is running on the host computer. The smartphone itself, on which MagicSDR is running, can act as a host computer.

To start playing with MagicSDR, you need to set up a server on a host computer to which SDR peripherals (rtl-sdr dongle) will be connected or connect SDR peripherals directly to a smartphone via a USB OTG cable. To try application without SDR peripherals, MagicSDR can emulate a virtual radio device.

Tweet29

Vote

29 Shares

May 5, 2021

Frugal Radio: Decoding ACARS on VHF with your SDR Radio

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently uploaded episode five in his YouTube series on Aviation monitoring. This episode covers VHF ACARS decoding with an RTL-SDR. ACARS is an acronym for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System and is a short text based wireless communications system used by aircraft when communicating with ground stations.

In the video Rob overviews the frequencies that ACARS is transmitted on in various regions of the world and what equipment you need to decode ACARS. He goes on to explain in depth what some typical data messages that you might receive are including D-ATIS/WX Reports, Pre Departure Clearance, Loadsheets, OOOI, Aircraft performance telemetry, ATC/Oceanic Clearances and arrival airport and parking gate information. Finally he shows various ACARS software decoders that can be used including ACARSDEC, Black Cat ACARS and ACARSDECO2.

Decoding ACARS on VHF with your SDR Radio - Monitoring Aviation Communications Ep 5

Watch this video on YouTube

Tweet14

Vote

14 Shares

April 30, 2021

RTL433 Plugin for SDR# Now Available

UPDATE 19 Feb 2024: Marc has released an updated version of the plugin at https://github.com/marco402/plugin-Rtl433-for-SdrSharp

Recently Marc has released his RTL433 plugin for SDR# over on GitHub and his Wixsite. RTL433 is a commonly used RTL-SDR command line program that provides decoders for a wide range of 433.92 MHz, 868 MHz, 315 MHz, 345 MHz, and 915 MHz ISM band devices. Examples of such devices include weather stations, alarm sensors, utility monitors, tire pressure monitors and more.

To install the plugin, go to the GitHub page and click on the green Code button, and select Download Zip. In the zip file open the "install" folder and extract the three .dll files into the SDR# folder. Now open the Plugins.xml file in Notepad and add the following line between the <sharpPlugins></sharpPlugins> tags.

<add key="RTL_433" value="SDRSharp.Rtl_433.Rtl_433_Plugin, SDRSharp.Rtl_433" />

Now you can add the plugin to the SDR# screen using the hamburger menu within SDR# on the top left. When a device is discovered it will open up a window for that device, logging data from it over time.

Tweet30

Vote

30 Shares

April 30, 2021

Guglielmo: RTL-SDR FM + DAB Tuner Software for Linux

Thank you to Marco for submitting news about the release of his Linux based RTL-SDR FM and DAB tuner software package named Guglielmo. The code is based on the Qt-dab and sdr-j-fm packages, with some bug fixes, a new GUI and new audio features implemented. Marco writes:

Guglielmo implements a simple FM and DAB receiver based on Qt and the Qt-dab and sdr-j-fm packages.

The primary reason it is being developed is there is a lack of media centre quality Open Source Software Defined Radios: most of the packages out there focus more on hobbyist features, such as signal and content monitoring, leaving out media features like a volume slider or MPRIS control.

Yes, I have blown the ribbon tweeter fuses on my maggies because my previous go to SDR DAB receiver started at full blast, and I run my media centre headless: I don't really want to scramble for a VNC session when I want to stop the music, when I could simply use KDE connect on my phone.

There is also a distinct lack of FM SDR receivers, which is disappointing, since, at least in the UK, for reasons of cost, most stations transmit at a fairly poor bitRate, if not downright in mono, and FM stations seem to still be a better proposition in terms of sound quality.

If you're interested in trying it compilation instructions are available on the GitHub, and there is also a ready to use AppImage on the GitHub releases page too.

Guglielmo: Screenshot of the DAB Interface

Tweet11

Vote

11 Shares