YouTube Review of the RS-918: A Chinese Clone of a Clone of the mcHF SDR

Over on YouTube Kevin Loughin has uploaded a video reviewing the "Recent RS-918" which is a Chinese clone of the popular mcHF open source SDR transceiver made by Chris (M0NKA). The mcHF is a well known small and inexpensive home brewed open source HF QRP SDR that was started back in 2013. It's sold either as a kit for 236.82 GBP (US$287), or with metal enclosure at 292.78 GBP (US$354). The kit comes with SMD components already soldered, but you still need to solder the through hole components and assemble it into the enclosure. The RS-918 clone can be found fully assembled as a ready to use product on eBay for approximately US$400.

As the "Recent RS-918" is a commercial Chinese clone of an open source project that has restrictions against commercial use, it goes against the spirit and legality of the licence imposed by the original creator. So based on that Kevin cannot recommend the RS-918 SDR. However, from his review Kevin notes that apart from some burning hot areas on the metal after transmitting, the SDR itself works and has a nice minimal design. The design appears to be based on an older version of the mcHF, so the latest upgrades are not available.

Kevin's review just overviews the RS-918 and doesn't go into depth reviewing the radio. For the rest of his video Kevin discusses the lineage of the RS-918, noting that it is actually a clone of the Ailunce HS1, which in turn is a clone of the mcHF. He then goes on to discuss the mcHF itself, noting that we should support all the hard work that Chris has put in (and continues to put in) to the original mcHF rather than these immoral clones.

Ham Radio - The RS-918 clone of a clone of an outstanding open source SDR transceiver, the mcHF.

GR-Oscilloscope: Using an Oscilloscope as a Software Defined Radio

A modern digital oscilloscope uses an analogue to digital converter (ADC) and digital signal processing (DSP), just like a software defined radio does, so it stands to reason that with some software hacks an oscilloscope could be turned into an SDR.

To facilitate this, jmfriedt has just released his new software called "gr-oscillioscope" over on GitHub. GR-Oscilloscope allows you to use a digital oscilloscope as a software defined radio source in the latest GNU Radio 3.8. It has been tested with a Rohde & Schwarz RTO2034 and RTE1054, and should work on any RT series oscilloscope. The software works by using the VXI11 RPC protocol which is a protocol designed for connecting instruments like oscilloscopes to computers.

GR-Oscilloscope Screenshot from GNU Radio.
GR-Oscilloscope Screenshot from GNU Radio.

Developing Your Own SDR Applications With Python

[Max-Felix Müller] wanted to develop his own SDR application with the goal of learning python and a bit about signals processing. To accomplish this goal he’s using [pyrtlsdr] a library which wraps many of the functions from the [rtlsdr-dev] library into a Pythonic set of functions that you can use to develop SDR applications for an RTL based SDR in python. Over on Hackaday.io Max-Felix has been writing about his Python RTL-SDR experiments and has been uploading sample code for anyone to take a look at and learn from. 

Using the library is pretty simple as it handles the basics of setting up the frequency and PPM settings as well as gain and proceeds to tunnel samples into your application. Max-Felix’s examples take us from the very first steps of setting up the dongle and gathering samples, to plotting the spectrum and creating a waterfall. This generally entails the use of another python library known as [matplotlib] and [numpy], which together you can use to create your own FFT.

It is nearly limitless what you can do with a little bit of Python and a few libraries given enough development time and you don’t need to be a software developing master to get started. You may be interested in taking a look at [PLSDR] which we covered in a previous article where [P. Lutus] developed his own SDR application completely in Python. It’s open-source so feel free to take a look and learn more about how you can implement amazing things with just a little bit of code.

POLL: What do you want in a future low cost SDR?

We've decided to ask the community what sort of radio would be more popular for a ~$30 RX-only SDR. Note that thus far this is only a hypothetical SDR that does not yet have any designs. We are just feeling for what's most interesting to people and exploring for future ideas which may not even be feasible at this time.

As always with engineering, there is always a trade off. It is likely that any low cost SDR can only be wide band, with basic RF performance, narrowband with good RF performance, or expensive.

What is most important to you in a software defined radio?

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Wider bandwidth: Currently the RTL-SDR allows you to see up to 3.2 MHz of spectrum live. Higher bandwidth (10 MHz or more) would mean seeing more of the spectrum at once without needing to retune, faster whole spectrum scans and the ability to receive wideband signals.

RF Performance: The RTL-SDR has an 8-bit ADC. While sufficient for many applications, in the presence of strong signals the ADC will saturate resulting in poor reception and signal overload. Higher end SDRs like the SDRplay, Airspy, LimeSDR etc use 12-bit or higher ADCs.

Frequency Range: The RTL-SDR V3 can tune from 500 kHz to 1.75 GHz. An expanded SDR could potentially tune up to 4 GHz or even higher.

If you're interested in other things, please comment on this post!

Decoding the Lucky-7 Cubesat

Lucky-7 is a Czech cubesat that carries some interesting sensors including a low power GPS receiver, a gamma ray spectrometer and dosimeter and a photo camera. The creators also claim that it is "probably the lowest-cost scientific space mission in human history". It was recently successfully launched and orbited together with the Meteor M2-2 weather satellite and several other small satellites.

"We did not build just another satellite. It is a flying laboratory. The satellite is going to test something that nobody has ever done before. Thanks to our background in electronics, materials and space effects, we implemented commonly used electrical parts from automotive and IoT industry in totally new ways. Gallium Nitride power transistors used in modern electric cars do not contain insulation layer to control its conductivity. That makes them much less vulnerable against the space radiation. We fly the world's first MOSFET-free power supply ever built for small satellites. The LED lighting industry has been used to make composite aluminum radiation shields for us. It is very cheap, lightweight and it naturally increases the mission lifetime," says Jaroslav Laifr, the CEO and founder.

If all goes well, the team will be able to measure the in-situ radiation background by miniature onboard Dosimeter and monitor the health of key subsystems, such as communication or data storage by complete satellite telemetry. The experimental Gamma Spectrometer payload informing about the energy of incident radiation will be able to detect Gamma Ray Bursts from distant galaxies. The platform also contains the VGA camera to demonstrate the data transfer capability. It may capture the first colour images ever taken by Czech satellite, possibly detecting the aurora glow. Such pictures would be greatly utilized for the outreach and inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers.

Daniel Estesvev has recently added a Lucky-7 decoder to gr-satellites, and has uploaded a post explaining some technical details on how he created the decoder. With this decoder, anyone with an SDR and appropriate antenna should be able to receive and decode the telemetry (no word on camera images yet). He writes that "Lucky-7 transmits 4k8 GFSK telemetry in the 70cm band. It uses a SiLabs Si4463 transceiver with a PN9 scrambler and a CRC-16. You must use FM mode to receive this satellite (437.525MHz)."

CubeSat companies like Sky Fox Labs are also tracking the satellite, and are tweeting results.

SignalsEverywhere: Satcom Antennas for L-Band Reception via RTL-SDR + Podcast on the MiTee CubeSat Project

On this episode of SignalsEverywhere on YouTube Corrosive shows off several antennas that can be used for Inmarsat and Iridium satcom reception. His video shows off a commercial Inmarsat branded satlink antenna which is designed to be used on moving ships, a grid dish antenna, a custom QFH iridium antenna made from a repurposed Vaisala radiosonde, a commercial Iridium patch, an older Outernet/Othernet Iridium patch and a custom Iridium patch that Corrosive built himself.

Satcom Antennas for L-Band Reception via RTL SDR

A few days prior Corrosive also released a new episode of his podcast. In this episode he interviewed Derek a student from The University of Michigan who is working on the MiTee CubeSat. The MiTee cubesat is a small experimental satellite that will explore the use of miniaturized electrodynamic tethers for satellite propulsion.

Dronesense: A LimeSDR Based Drone Detector and Jammer

Over on the LimeSDR CrowdSupply blog, Ogün Levent has submitted a short article about his "Dronesense" project. Dronsense is a spectrum-scanning and jamming system based on the LimeSDR. The LimeSDR is a US$299 12-bit TX/RX capable SDR that can tune between 100 kHz – 3.8 GHz, with a maximum bandwidth of up to 61.44 MHz.

Drone defense is a problem that is plaguing airports, cities, sensitive buildings and the military. These days anyone with a low cost off the shelf drone can cause havoc. Solutions so far have included net guns, drone deployed nets, wideband jammers, GPS spoofers, traditional and passive radar systems, visual camera detection, propeller noise detection, microwave lasers and SDR based point and shoot drone jamming guns like the IXI Dronekiller.

Both the expensive made for military IXI Dronekiller SDR gun, and the LimeSDR Dronesense work in a similar way. They begin by initially using their scanning feature to detect and find potential drone signals. If a drone signal is detected, it will emit a jamming signal on that particular frequency, resulting in the drone entering a fail-safe mode and either returning to base or immediately landing. Specifically targeting the drone's frequency should help make the jammers compliant with radio regulations as they won't jam other legitimate users at the same time. We note that this method might not stop drones using custom RF communications, or fully autonomous drones.

Dronesense: Drone Detection and Jammer Mounted on another Drone, running on a LimeSDR.
Dronesense: Drone Detection and Jammer Mounted on another Drone, running on a LimeSDR.

However, unlike the IXI Dronekiller gun, Dronesense requires no pointing and aiming of a gun like device. Instead it appears to be mounted on another drone, with an omnidirectional jamming antenna. It runs with a GNU Radio based flowgraph which decides if a detected signal is from a drone, and if so activates the jammer. Unfortunately the software and further details don't appear to be available due to non-disclosure agreements.

DroneSense Second Jamming Test (Software Defined Aerial Platform)

SDR-Makerspace Talk: Evaluation of SDR boards and toolchains

The Software Defined Radio Academy YouTube channel recently uploaded an interesting talk by Alex Csete (creator of the popular GQRX and GPredict applications), and Sheila Christiansen. Their presentation discusses their work with the European Space Agency (ESA), Libre Space Foundation and how they are running SDR Makerspace's that are helping students create and track cubesats. During the talk Alex and Sheila also describe various SDR hardware, and how they test them for their purposes.

SDR Makerspace (https://sdrmaker.space) is a collaboration between the European Space Agency and Libre Space Foundation, with the objective of bringing innovative open-source SDR technologies to space communications.

Space is a complex environment. Attempting to incorporate SDRs into complex subsystems of space missions without sufficient understanding of the technology can add unnecessary risks and uncertainties to the mission. SDR Makerspace aims to bring open-source SDR technology to the space industry, focusing on the practical aspects of satellite communications, so as to reduce such risks.

Makers, open-source hackers, SDR enthusiasts, and researchers are collaborating on SDR hardware and software activities, focusing on rapid prototyping and development of reusable, open-source SDR components for future CubeSat missions.

The collaboration consists of many activities, which are organized into three main elements: development of reusable GNU Radio components, research and development in cutting edge technologies like AI/ML, and testing of SDR hardware and software.

Current activities are presented with a focus on the testing of the hardware and software. An overview of the investigation into the characteristics, such as, performance under realistic conditions, damage by radiation to essential parts, functionality of FPGA toolchains, the SDR-system’s complexity, and accessibility to the open-source community will also be covered.

Alex Csete, OZ9AEC: SDR-Makerspace: Evaluation of SDR boards and toolchains