Noise from the Sun with the RTL-SDR
YouTube user tvdxrools . has posted a short video showing what solar activity noise from the sun looks like on the waterfall at 31 MHz. He used an RTL-SDR dongle and 1/2 wave vertical antenna.
SDRTouch Version 1.7 Released
The Android based SDR program SDRTouch has been officially updated to version 1.7. News comes via this forum post. This looks to be a major update which significantly improves audio quality and performance. The new features are listed below.
- FM is now in STEREO
- New audio recording feature for PRO users
- Improved reception and audio quality. All filters were tested for quality and all bugs discovered were removed.
- The multi-threading logic was completely rewritten. Now it’s faster than ever before.
- Audio is now using NDK.
- PPM correction, audio gain setting
- A lot of bug fixes and UI enhancements
- Experimental x86 support
SiDRadio: RTL-SDR Kit including Preselector & Upconverter
The Australian Silicon Chip magazine has written an article about a kitset for a 100KHz to 2 GHz receiver based on the RTL-SDR that they are selling. Note, you will need to pay in order to be able to read the entire article.
Completing the kit gives you a radio with two antenna inputs, a 5-band preselector, an RF amplifier and an upconverter for the HF bands.
Elusive E4000 RTL-SDR Dongles
Over on the Gough’s Tech Zone blog, Gough has posted about his experiences in trying to obtain an E4000 RTL-SDR. He found that finding a real E4000 on ebay was tough, with most vendors claiming to have “upgraded E4000s” which were in fact R820T’s.
The E4000 tuner is becoming rare as Elonics, the manufacturer has shut down. The newer, still in production R820T tuner is in many ways better than the E4000, but the E4000 is still useful for some applications that require the higher frequencies that it can tune to.
If you want an E4000, we know for sure that Nooelec sells a Terratec version that has the E4000 chip.
Funcube SDR Radio Telescope
A Radio Astronomer by the name of Dr David Morgan has released a tutorial/paper he wrote detailing how he uses the Funcube dongle Pro+ as a tool for radio astronomy. The Funcube dongle Pro+ is a software defined radio similar to the RTL-SDR, with higher cost, but better performance in some areas.
Dr Morgan uses his Funcube dongle with the SpectrumLab Windows software, which is a specialized audio analyzer. For the hardware, David uses a 3m focal plane dish antenna and a 1200 MHz high pass filter.
The paper goes into good detail about some of the technical side of radio astronomy, shows how to calibrate the telescope using the sun and also shows several measurements made. We note that the same procedures could also likely be done with the RTL-SDR.
Receiving, Decoding and Decrypting GSM with the RTL-SDR : YouTube Talk and Slides
A few days ago we posted about how Domi aka Domonkos Tomcsányi wrote on his blog about decoding and decrypting GSM signals from your own cell phones. Domi also did a talk at the CampZero conference which has now been uploaded to YouTube. His slides can be obtained from this link.
RTL-SDR Spectrometer for a Small Radio Telescope
Marc Higginson-Rollins of the University of Kentucky has published an academic styled paper in conjuction with Dr. Alan E.E. Rogers of the MIT Haystack Observatory showing how they used an RTL-SDR to implement a Small Radio Telescope (SRT).
In the paper they discuss how they dealt with the frequency drifting and offset problems common in the RTL-SDR. They also show how they dealt with the center spur by correcting the bias that it introduced and how they filtered out RFI noise from a nearby radar station and electronics.
Using the RTL-SDR and SRT they were able to measure the spectra of several well known regions of neutral hydrogen emissions, and measure the galactic rotation curve shown below.
Wavesink Plus: Android RTL-SDR App with FM+RDS/DAB+/DRM+ Decoding
Wavesink Plus, the paid version of the trial version of Wavesink has been released on Google Play. Wavesink Plus is an Android app which has FM+RDS, DAB+ and DRM+ receiving and decoding capabilities when connected to an RTL-SDR dongle via a USB OTG cable.
We gave Wavesink Plus a test today on a HTC One X Android phone and were pleased to discover that it works perfectly. The user interface has been tidied up from previous versions, and DAB+ has been added. There is now also auto tuning functionality, which will automatically find a station.
In further testing we found that the latest version of Wavesink was fast and snappy and was able to load DAB+ stations quickly, and decode them with clear audio. FM radio also sounded clear and RDS information loaded quickly as well.
Download the trial version here and buy the full version from this link.
