John’s Windows 10 NOAA Weather Satellite Software Guide for RTL-SDR

Thank you to John First for submitting his guide all about the setup and use of the software required to receive NOAA weather satellite images on Windows 10 (pdf file) with an RTL-SDR dongle. John's guide covers the use of SDR# for receiving the signal, WXtoIMG for decoding the signal, and Orbitron for tracking the satellite and automatically tuning SDR# when a satellite is in range.

He also explains the use of the VB-Audio Virtual Cable for piping audio between SDR# and WXtoIMG, as well as the DDE Tracking and Scheduling Plugin for interfacing SDR# with Orbitron, and finally how to do NTP clock synchronization to ensure the local time is accurate.

An Excerpt from John's Guide
An Excerpt from John's Guide
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Introducing the Radio Resilience Competition

Thank you to Matt Knight for submitting news about the Radio Resilience Competition which is all about finding ways to building the best wireless PHY layer via SDR. Anyone around the world can participate from the comfort of their own home, as the competition is run entirely via a GNU Radio RF simulator system. Matt writes:

The Radio Resilience Competition is a community-focused Software Defined Radio competition that is all about building the most interference-resistant, highest-performance waveforms possible.  Inspired by DARPA's Spectrum Challenges, it goes back to basics by focusing on the foundational layer of all wireless communications -- the PHY.  Registration is open now on our homepage!

For your readers, IMO the most exciting dimension of the Radio Resilience Competition is that it takes place entirely on virtual infrastructure.  We decided to design the competition this way to set the lowest possible barrier to entry, and to draw the biggest competitor pool possible.  DARPA's challenges relied on big expensive RF emulators built on real radios and supercomputers which, despite being immensely cool, capped the total number of competitors and had some material drawbacks.  Furthermore, we open sourced our RF simulator so competitors can run it locally and rapidly iterate on their designs.  We hope the simulator will have uses beyond the competition as well.

The Radio Resilience Competition is organized by Sytse Sijbrandij, who in an entirely separate capacity from running this competition is also the CEO of GitLab.  Sid envisioned the competition after learning about unlicensed spectrum and becoming an SDR hobbyist himself.

We presented the Radio Resilience Competition at GNU Radio Conference on Monday.  Here's a link to our talk if you are interested -- it goes into more detail about the conception of the competition, as well as the infrastructure we built for it.

GNU Radio Conference 2020 - Monday September 14th

Screenshot of the Radio Resilience RF Simulator
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The SETI Institute and GNU Radio Join Forces

The institute for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and GNU Radio are joining forces. SETI are an organization that uses radio telescopes to search for radio signals that may have been generated by extraterrestrial intelligence. As part of a transition from proprietary hardware to cheaper more capable off the shelf hardware such as USRP SDRs and GPU processors, SETI are beginning to make more use of the open source GNU Radio DSP processing suite. The use of GNU Radio will also allow other researchers and hobbyists at home to possibly help with their own analysis.

In the Zoom meeting below SETI and GNU Radio leaders discuss the partnership, also noting the importance RTL-SDRs have played in the advancement and popularisation of GNU Radio, as well in the general advancement of radio education.

SETI Institute and GNU Radio Join Forces

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Testing Sharp Slicer: Multiple Spectrum Slices via SDR# with an Airspy SDR

Youssef the author of SDR# has recently released an update which adds a feature called "Sharp Slicer". This feature allows Airspy SDR users to open multiple instances of SDR#, each able to tune to a seperate signal within the currently tuned frequency range of the SDR. This is somewhat similar to the old multi-VFO plugin from rtl-sdr.ru, however the advantage of Slicer is that you can have seperate spectrum and waterfall graphs for each signal. This could be especially useful for monitoring multiple narrowband HF modes with an Airspy HF+ Discovery. 

To use Sharp Slicer you must have an Airspy SDR, be it an Airspy Mini/R2 or HF+/Discovery. Unfortunately it will not work with RTL-SDR or other SDRs. Once the SDR is running in SDR#, simply press the "+" button on the top left to open a new Slicer instance. It seems possible to open as many instances as you want, and probably the only limitation is your CPU. On our Intel i7-6700 we tested up to 8 instances running at the maximum bandwidth of an Airspy Mini, and the SDR# CPU utilization was only at 50%.

A nice touch is that you can also see the location of each VFO on the master SDR# instance, and the color can be changed on each Slicer instance.

Over on Twitter @ea3ibc has also been testing:

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Graphing Data from a Weather Station via RTL-SDR and Home Assistant

Over on YouTube user mostlychris has uploaded a helpful tutorial video show how to use an RTL-SDR to collect data coming from a personal weather station and graph it on the home automation software known as Home Assistant.

To do this he uses an RTL-SDR on a Raspberry Pi running rtl_433 which receives and decodes the weather station data. He then configures rtl_433 to output data in the MQTT protocol which Home Assistant can receive and understand.  Finally he configures Home Assistant to plot the received data. The tutorial is comprehensive covering every step required from start to finish.

Take charge of your own Ambient weather data with Raspberry Pi, MQTT, and Home Assistant.

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33% OFF Sale: Ultra Stable Bullseye LNB for QO-100/Es’Hail-2

Back in May we started selling the Bullseye LNB on our store, which is an ultra stable LNB for receiving QO-100 and other Ku-Band satellites/applications. We have recently managed to secure a good deal from the supplier. However, our storage warehouse is now low on space and we are hence running a 33% off stock clearance sale with the unit now priced at only US$19.97 including free worldwide shipping to most countries. 

To order the product, please go to our store, and scroll down until you see the QO-100 Bullseye TCXO LNB heading. Alternatively we also have stock via our Aliexpress store or on eBay.

What is QO-100 and an LNB?

QO-100 / Es'hail-2 is a geostationary satellite at at 25.5°E (covering Africa, Europe, the Middle East, India, eastern Brazil and the west half of Russia/Asia) providing broadcasting services. However, as a bonus it also has the world's first amateur radio repeater in geostationary orbit. Uplink is at 2.4 GHz and downlink is at 10.5 GHz.

Most SDRs do not tune all the way up to 10.5 GHz, so an LNB (low noise block) is typically used, which contains the feed, an LNA, and a downconverter which converts the 10.5 GHz frequency into a much lower one that can be received by most SDRs.

What's special about the Bullseye LNB?

In order to properly monitor signals on QO-100 an LNB with a Temperature Compensated Oscillator (TCXO) or other stabilization method is required. Most LNBs have non-stabilized crystals which will drift significantly over time on the order of 300 PPM with temperature changes.  This means that the narrowband signals used on QO-100 can easily drift out of the receive band or cause distorted reception. Software drift compensation can be used to an extent, but it works best if the LNB is somewhat stable in the first place. It is possible to hand modify a standard Ku-band LNB by soldering on a replacement TCXO or hacking in connections to a GPSDO, but the Bullseye LNB ready to use with a built in 1PPM TCXO and is cheap.

Reviews

In the past Tech Minds has reviewed this product favourably in the video shown below. In a second video he has also shown how the Bullseye can be combined with a transmit helix in order to create a dual feed uplink + downlink capable antenna.

Ultra Stable Bullseye LNB For QO-100 Es Hail2 10 kHz

F4DAV has also reviewed the unit on his website, concluding with the following statement:

As far as I know the BE01 is the first affordable mass-produced Ku-band TCXO LNB. These early tests suggest that it can be a game changer for amateur radio and other narrowband applications in the 10 GHz band. The stability and ability to recalibrate should allow even unsophisticated analog stations to tune to a 5 kHz channel and remain there for hours at a time. For SDR stations with beacon-based frequency correction, the absolute accuracy removes the need to oversample by several hundred kHz or to scan for the initial frequency offset.

There are also several posts on Twitter by customers noting good performance

Official Feature List + Specs

Features

  • Bullseye 10 kHz BE01
  • Universal single output LNB
  • Frequency stability within 10 kHz in normal outdoor environment
  • Phase locked loop with 2 PPM TCXO
  • Factory calibration within 1 kHz utilizing GPS-locked spectrum analyzers
  • Ultra high precision PLL employing proprietary frequency control system (patent pending)
  • Digitally controlled carrier offset with optional programmer
  • 25 MHz output reference available on secondary F-connector (red)

Specifications 

  • Input frequency: 10489 - 12750 MHz
  • LO frequency 9750/10600 MHz
  • LO frequency stability at 23C: +/- 10 kHz
  • LO frequency stability -20 - 60C: +/- 30 kHz
  • Gain: 50 - 66 dB
  • Output frequency: 739 - 1950 MHz (low band) and 1100 - 2150 (high band)
  • Return loss of 8 dB (739 - 1950 MHz) and 10 dB (1100 - 2150 MHz)
  • Noise figure: 0.5 dB

We note that an external bias tee power injector is required to power the LNB as it requires 11.5V - 14V to operate in vertical polarization and 16V - 19V to operate with horizontal polarization. The bias tee on the RTL-SDR Blog V3 outputs 4.5V so it is not suitable.

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DragonOS: KerberosSDR Bearing Server Setup with RDFMapper

DragonOS is a ready to use Linux OS image that includes many SDR programs preinstalled and ready to use. The creator Aaron also runs a YouTube channel that has multiple tutorial videos demonstrating software built into DragonOS.

In a recent video Aaron has provided a two part tutorial showing how to set up and use KerberosSDR with the RDFMapper software on DragonOS. This allows you to network multiple KerberosSDR units together and display each units radio bearing on the same map. Two or more bearings crossing can be used to determine the location of a transmitter. In the future Aaron will use this setup to have multiple mobile and fixed  KerberosSDR units connected together via Zero Tier. Aaron writes:

In this first video I show how to install software to control the KerberosSDR – A 4-Channel Phase Coherent RTL-SDR for Passive Radar, Direction Finding and more onto DragonOS Focal (Lubuntu 20.04 based). A fork of the main code is required due to some changes in dependencies and packages. This fork is only meant for or at least tested on Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Lubuntu 20.04.

I also show some issues you may experience due to poor quality USB cables, insufficient power, and/or issues with USB ports being used to power the KerberosSDR or connect to it.

In this second video I show how to install and use RDFMapper with the KerberosSDR software and Android App. I also cover some common problems I've experienced with the current KerberosSDR Android App.

Recommended to watch the first video if you are planning to run the KerberosSDR on a PC or a SBC like the Raspberry Pi. This video and setup procedure can be adapted to use the Raspberry Pi/Android App instead of a PC. 

I plan to make a couple more videos on this topic. By the end, it should be possible to have multiple KerberosSDR stations, both mobile and stationary, linked to one instance of RDFMapper over Zero Tier all simultaneously performing direction finding on one frequency.

KerberosSDR is our 4-channel phase coherent capable RTL-SDR unit that we previously successfully crowdfunded back in 2018.  With a 4-channel phase coherent RTL-SDR interesting applications like radio direction finding, passive radar and beam forming become possible. It can also be used as 4 separate RTL-SDRs for multichannel monitoring. KerberosSDR is currently in stock and available on the Othernet store.

DragonOS Focal KerberosSDR setup (20.04 fork, x86_64 Laptop) part 1

DragonOS Focal KerberosSDR w/ Bearing Server setup (RDFMapper, Android App, x86_64 Laptop) part 2

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Setting up a Raspberry Pi for Ham Radio with RTL-SDR

Over on his blog F4GOH has posted a rather comprehensive tutorial consisting of seven PDF documents showing how he's set up his Raspberry Pi for ham radio and other RF projects. The PDF's essentially form a book that starts with the very basics like preparing an OS for the Pi SD Card, powering on the Pi, finding the IP address and connecting to it with SSH or VNC.

The tutorials move on to installing and using various ham radio programs like Fldigi, WSJT-X , GQRX, GNU Radio, before going on to teach some more Linux concepts. The final two PDF tutorials cover the installation and use of OpenWebRX for remote RTL-SDR use, R2Cloud for decoding weather satellites, and finally Radiosonde Auto RX for decoding radiosonde's on weather balloons.

[Also seen on Hackaday]

Raspberry Pi for Ham Radio
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