Over on YouTube user Fuzz has uploaded a short video showing his “Ham Radio Go Box”. This is a plastic box containing inside many pieces of mounted equipment, all hooked up and ready to go. Inside he has a Raspberry Pi connected to a 7-inch touch screen and RTL-SDR Blog V3 dongle. The Raspberry Pi is used for satellite tracking and for driving an external bluetooth speaker. He also has inside a Baofeng BTECH tri-band radio which connects to an external speaker. The box also seems to have battery charging via an external solar panel.
Ham Radio Go Box With Raspberry Pi And Bluetooth speaker and SDR
Voice inversion scrambling is a simple and old security method used on analog radios to try and obscure conversations from being listened in on by people with scanners. It works simply by by moving the low frequencies higher and the high frequencies lower, or in other words inverting the audio. A descrambler is then required to recover the true audio, otherwise you will only hear garbled audio. Voice inversion provides little real security, as it is very simply to descramble, and many scanner radios already have descrambling features built in. These days most secure communications are digital and encrypted, but voice inversion scrambling is still available on many analog radios, and could still be in use by some users looking for protection against casual eavesdroppers.
Oona Räisänen (aka windytan) has recently released a simple program called ‘deinvert’ over on GitHub. This program is a descrambler that reads in a scrambled wav file and outputs a descrambled audio file. The audio file could be easily recorded with an RTL-SDR and rtl_fm, or a similar SDR.
Back in June Gus Gorman showed us via a YouTube tutorial and demo how to monitor ATCS (Advanced Train Control System) signals from trains. ATCS is found in the USA and is used for things like communications between trains, rail configuration data, train location data, speed enforcement, fuel monitoring, train diagnostics and general instructions and messages. Gus used an RTL-SDR and the ATCS Monitor software to decode the signals and give us a view of the current state of the railway line.
In his latest video Gus gives a better demonstration of the software by parking outside a train station so that he can receive many more signals from the trains. At the start of the video he shows the track view of BNSF trains, and then later switches over to the Union Pacific track view.
Over on his YouTube channel GusGorman402 has uploaded a video that shows how he was able to capture and decode data from a USGS (United States Geological Service) streamgage.
A streamgage is a sensor for streams and rivers that is used for measuring the amount of water flowing. In particular the ALERT (Automated Local Evaluation in Real-Time) streamgages are designed for the warning of flooding. The ALERT streamgages are wireless with some transmitting data upwards to the GOES-15 geosynchronous satellite with a cross Yagi and some transmitting locally via a standard Yagi. Gus shows if you’re close to a streamgage antenna then you can still receive the signal on the ground with an RTL-SDR. Gus also mentions that all streamgages in his area are slowly being converted to satellite uplink.
His first video simply shows the RTL-SDR receiving a Streamgage satellite uplink signal at 400 MHz. In his second video he moves to a streamgage with terrestrial link at 170 MHz and shows that the data can actually be decoded into a binary string using minimodem. Another program called udfc-node can then be used to turn the data into a human readable format. The binary packets consist of an address that identifies the particular streamgage, and some data that describes the current level of the stream and how much precipitation it has counted.
Over on his YouTube channel user Tysonpower has uploaded a video that shows how to make a V-Dipole antenna. Back in March we posted about the V-Dipole which Adam 9A4QV first described. A V-Dipole is a simple antenna that normally consists of two metal rods, a terminal block and coax cable. It is particularly effective for reception of low Earth orbit satellites like the NOAA and Meteor M2 weather image satellites with an RTL-SDR or other similar SDR.
In his video Tysonpower shows how to build a slightly more rugged version using a 3D printed part instead of a terminal block. Aluminum welding rods are used for the elements. The 3D printed part ensures that the correct 120 degree ‘V’ angle is maintained and also provides a means for mounting the antenna to a pole. The 3D printing STL files are available on Thingiverse. Note that the video is in German, but English subtitles are available.
Late last year the ThumbNet team announced their custom RTL-SDR dongle which they named the “Nongles N3”. This is a standard R820T2 RTL-SDR, but with some interesting additional features. Some of the changes they made include:
Shielding can on the PCB
Thick rugged metal case
F-Type connector
External 5V power input
Low noise PCB design
As explained in our previous reviews (prototype review, production review) the N3 is a rugged dongle, probably best suited to applications where the SDR could take a beating. The F-Type connector is also preferred by some people as it is fairly commonly used on TV equipment in most parts of the world. Shielding against local strong signals is also excellent due to its double shielding with a shielding can on the PCB and with the metal case.
Probably the most defining feature other than its ruggedness and low noise floor is that it can be optionally powered by 5V external power. So it could be used at the end of a very long active USB cable, with power provided locally. Or if very low power noise is desired, a linear power supply could be used.
We now have these N3 dongles available for purchase in our store. Please note that this is a commission sale, so the N3 will actually be shipped by the Nongles team in the USA once a week. The current price of the Nongles N3 is $33.5 USD + $4.5USD shipping in the USA, or $10 USD shipping worldwide.
Over on his YouTube channel Adam 9A4QV has been testing his ADALM-PLUTO SDR in the 2M ham band at around 144 MHz. In one of his videos he shows a 2-tone test. A 2-tone test is used to determine how well an SDR can handle two strong narrowband signals at once, without causing intermodulation and imaging problems. The two tones in his video occur with real world signals on the 2M band when two amateur radio operators are transmitting strong signals at the same time.
The video shows that the Pluto SDR has some intermodulation problems occurring when the two strong signals transmit at once. No problems are noticed when only one signal transmits.
Problems like this with the PlutoSDR may be expected as it was never designed to be a high performance receiver, but rather a tool for learning and experimentation. But it is still possible to use it as a more general purpose receiver if you are aware of the limitations.
Over on YouTube user Tysonpower has uploaded a video showing how he was (almost) able to receive the HRPT signal from NOAA18 with an ADALM-PLUTO, LNA4ALL and a WiFi grid antenna.
Most readers will be familiar with the low resolution 137 MHz APT weather satellite images transmitted by the NOAA weather satellites. But NOAA 15, 18, 19 and well as Metop-A and Feng Yun satellites also transmit an HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transmission) signal up in the 1.7 GHz region. These HRPT images are much nicer to look at with a high 1.1 km resolution. If you follow @usa_satcom on Twitter you can see some HRPT images that he uploads every now and then.
However HRPT is quite difficult to receive and decode because the bandwidth is about 3 MHz so something with more bandwidth than an RTL-SDR is required. The signal also needs a ~1 meter or larger dish antenna as it is very weak, and you also need a motorized pointing system to track the satellite with the dish as it passes over.
Despite the difficulty in his video Tysonpower showed that he was able to at least receive a weak signal using a non-optimal 2.4 GHz WiFi grid dish antenna, LNA4ALL and his ADALM-PLUTO. The signal is far too weak to actually decode, but it’s still pretty surprising to receive it at all. In the future Tysonpower hopes to be able to improve his system and actually get some image decodes going. Note that the video is in German, but there are English subtitles available.
[EN subs] Empfang von HRPT mit dem ADALM-PLUTO SDR - NOAA18
![[EN subs] Bau einer V-Dipole Antenne - 3D Druck für mehr Genauigkeit und Stabilität](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FmGPpEhBBoAs%2F0.jpg)
![[EN subs] Empfang von HRPT mit dem ADALM-PLUTO SDR - NOAA18](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FrMhMhz0pwD8%2F0.jpg)
