Decoding RDS in GNU Radio with the RTL-SDR

DangerousPrototypes.com have brought to attention a GNU Radio RDS decoding project from the website at Anotherurl. Check out the original post here. Anotherurl uses a GNU Radio Companion flowgraph and a .NET program to decode FM RDS messages. RDS is an acronym for Radio Data System, which is used in FM radio transmissions to embed information such as radio station and programme/song information. Some conventional FM radios display this information on an LCD screen. The popular SDRSharp SDR receiver also has RDS decoding built into it’s FM receiver already, but a GNU Radio implementation is very useful for learning how RDS works.

GNU Radio RDS Decoder

via dangerousprototypes.com

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Combining Multiple RTL-SDRs for Improved ADS-B Reception

Over on Gough’s Tech Zone blog, Lui has posted a writeup about his experiences with combining multiple remote RTL-SDR ADS-B receivers to privately obtain ADS-B aircraft data from multiple antenna’s at multiple locations. His setup is shown in a diagram below. He has one remote antenna connected to a Raspberry Pi, one to a remote PC and one to his main PC.

Combining Multiple ADSB Receivers

In order to do this he used the Linux based dump1090 ADSB-B decoder and hub software on his main PC. Lui was even able to compile and run the ADS-B hub portion of dump1090 on his Windows PC using Cygwin, but was unable to get the decoder part to work. It doesn’t matter though because the dump1090 hub can receive data from any ADSB decoder, such as ADSB#. His results look very promising as can be seen by the timelapse of plane traces in the image below.

nearairport

Lui also has some other interesting ADS-B + RTL-SDR posts that you should check out where he tests ADS-B reception with a Mini R820T dongle.

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rtl_acars.c Compilation Install Video

Yesterday we posted about the command line rtl_acars ACARS decoder. Today on YouTube, Pawel Janowski has posted a video showing how to download, compile and run the rtl_acars.c code on Linux.

Pawel has also posted the compilation instructions on his blog (in Polish but the console commands are easy to discern from the text).

ACARS from DVB-T (RTLSDR)

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RTL_ACARS Console Acars Decoder for RTL-SDR

On the Osmocom mailing list, Andreas has posted his work on a console based ACARS decoder for the RTL-SDR. Check out the mailing list thread here, and original post here. The second post on the thread shows how to compile it under Linux. Andreas writes

I have combined “rtl_fm” with Thierry Leconte’s (GPL’ed) acarsdec library code and created “rtl_acars” which can directly decode ACARS flight info messages to the console. Confirmed to compile on OSX 10.6 (not possible for me to check if it also compiles under Windows and *nix). Feel free to add it as another proof of concept to your distro unless you consider it too much of a quick&dirty hack.

Only the source code is available, and you will need to compile it yourself. The code can be found here.

 

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Receiving a 10GHz Beacon with RTL-SDR and an Avenger LNBF

In this video YouTube user feri67000 shows reception of a 10 GHz amateur beacon over 26km using the RTL-SDR, and an ‘Avenger LNBF‘, which we believe is this one which only costs $11. The LNB within the Avenger antenna converts the 10 GHz signal into a frequency that is receivable by the R820T RTL-SDR.

F0EQE reception F5ZWZ/b 10GHZ beacon rtl sdr R820T + SAT LNB PLL Avenger

Also, in this video by YouTube user EA5KGD reception of a voice signal is shown using the RTL-SDR and Avenger LNBF.

SDR RTL 2832U E4000 RX EB5EA on 10GHz beside Avenger LNB PLL (part 1)

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RTL-SDR SDRSharp Scanner Video Tutorial

If you’ve been having trouble figuring out the use of SDRSharp plugins, YouTube user radiosification has put up a useful video tutorial showing the installation steps required to get set up with the popular SDRSharp fast scanner plugin (old link), which was also recently updated.

In the second video he shows the fast scanner in action on the airband.

RTL SDR Scanner SDRsharp plugin setup + how to

SDR# scanner plugin demo airband

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