Over on YouTube user BSoD Badgers has uploaded a video showing his reception of FreeDV digital speech at 14 MHz. He uses SDR# combined with the FreeDV software to decode the signal.
FreeDV is a open source software application that allows digital speech to be sent at HF frequencies in a 1.25 kHz wide signal. The same software can be used on the receiving end to decode the signal into speech.
In our last post Adam Alicajic showed us on YouTube how to determine the frequency response of an RF filter using just a wideband noise source an LNA and an RTL-SDR dongle.
In his latest video Adam shows how the SWR of an antenna can be measured using almost the same low cost equipment. One additional piece of hardware required to measure the SWR is a directional coupler which can be bought on Ebay for about $10 USD.
SWR stands for "standing wave ratio" and is a measure that can be used to tune an antenna for a particular frequency. The closer the SWR is to 1:1 at the designed antenna frequency, the better the antenna will receive (and transmit).
In his video Adam shows how he measures the SWR of an ADS-B antenna which he has built and is selling. His results show that the antenna has an SWR of 1:1.02 at 1090 MHz which is quite good.
Over on YouTube RTL-SDR experimenter Adam Alicajic has uploaded a video showing how it is possible to use the RTL-SDR as a tool to measure the frequency response of an RF filter. To do this he uses a noise source circuit which produces wide band white noise connected to an LNA4ALL, connected to the RF filter and finally connected to the RTL-SDR. Then using the Touchstone spectrum analyzer software he does a 300 MHz bandwidth sweep over a section of the spectrum which shows the response of the filter.
The noise source can be built from a simple diode based circuit as shown in a previous post, or if you have the Ham-it-up upconverter you can buy the parts for the noise generator part of the circuit.
In his video he shows the frequency response of a 145 MHz helix filter, a coax notch filter and a 1090 MHz home brew bandpass filter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_gd2gWyGi4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvdaURc01Ts
Home automation enthusiast Bruce Winter has recently posted on his blog about how he uses the RTL-SDR as part of his home automation system to automatically monitor his power (and solar power generation) usage. Many home power meters are now wireless which allows meter readers to gather power usage data from afar.
To gather the power usage data he used an RTL-SDR connected to a PC running rtlamr, which is software that can read data from ERT compatible power meters that transmit in the 900 MHz ISM band. He also uses some custom code he wrote that automatically plots the data over time and allows him to integrate it with his home automation system. In addition to his post he also uploaded a video shown below that shows his system in action.
Over on YouTube user Jane feverlay has uploaded a video showing a new AIS decoder called AISRec for Windows that he has developed.
AIS is an acronym for Automatic Identification System and is a system used by ships to broadcast position and vessel information. By monitoring AIS transmissions with the RTL-SDR we can build a boat radar system. We have a tutorial on this here.
The new software is not free, but he offers a trial version that limits the run time to 20 minutes and 5000 max messages. The paid version removes these limits and also decodes both AIS channels simultaneously. The program monitors data from the RTL-SDR and sends decoded data out via UDP. Software such as OpenCPN can then be used to display the AIS data on a map.
We tested the trial version on our machine and found that it worked well at decoding AIS messages. To download the trial go to http://pan.baidu.com/s/1pJiEzEV and enter the code kn44. The download site is in Chinese, but it is obvious where to enter the code. We found the software to be virus free, but remember to always scan unknown software like this yourself. The full price of the software is unknown, but purchasing instructions are given in the trial download readme. The author also writes that his software now supports the Airspy, but not in the trial version.
Note that we discovered that the software doesn’t use a PPM correction setting as expected. Instead it uses a frequency shift setting. To set the shift in the AISRec.ini file, we had to calculate freqshift = 162.025 MHz – frequency of the second AIS channel as shown in SDR# with no PPM correction set.
Another similar software program that was released earlier is PNAis.
Pothos is a dataflow processing platform that can be used for signal processing through a graphical GUI that works in a similar way to GNU Radio. Over on YouTube the developers have released a tutorial video that shows how to use Pothos to interact with an RTL-SDR dongle. In the video they create a design which shows an RF spectrum and waterfall display.
Back in August of this year RTL-SDR code contributer Keenerd aka Kyle Keen ran an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to pay for him to work on upgrading RTL-SDR related code for one month. As Kyle only counts the days he manages to put a good effort in towards the upgrades, the coding is still ongoing. He recently put out an update which we quote below.
Programming Report – Week 3
Hey all, sorry about dropping off the radar there. There were several large unexpected events in recent months, but nothing bad. I’ve still been hacking on the project. An anonymous donor gave me a Lyons DSP textbook, which I’ve been working through for more solid foundations. But studying doesn’t generate any new code for you to play with, so hasn’t been counted towards the project.
I’ve also been working on a very ambitious ADS-B related side project. It is something no one has ever done before with the RTL-SDR, but mathematically it is feasible and progress is steady. Not anywhere near for a release (and might yet be impossible in practice), and thus also hasn’t been counted towards the project.
So what has been completed since the last report?
* Automatic audio gain. Crucial for AM/SSB listening.
* Audio padding (constant rate audio). If you are streaming rtl_fm, this will prevent stutters when the tuner is busy hopping.
* Heatmap fixes. The font is downloaded automatically and image slicing is completed. Run rtl_power 24×7 but render a heatmap of only the last hour, for example.
* Rtl_power fixes. Including one tricky corner case that caused crashes.
Also a big thank you to Kacper Michajłow who fixed and fleshed out a couple of Windows issues that were giving me trouble.
25 days remain. As always, if you have comments or suggestions you can reach me by email or in ##rtlsdr.
The latest feature requests and links to the GitHub repositories and Windows builds can be found at http://igg.kmkeen.com/.
The Airspy software defined radio recently completed its first round of 400 pre-orders. Now the second round of pre-orders has become available over on the manufacturers web store. It is priced at $199 USD and they expect the orders to be shipped around the middle of December.
If you were unaware the Airspy is an RX only SDR developed by the author of the SDR# software. It has a tuning range of 24 MHz to 1.7 GHz, up to 10 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a 12-bit ADC. The full list of features is shown below.
The Airspy was recently reviewed in two videos by W9RAN, the second video showing some sensitivity measurements. There are also various other videos of the Airspy in action now on YouTube.
