RTL-SDR.com SDR Dongle Giveaway!

We are giving away 20 of our new units with the metal case!

Competition has now ended! Thanks to all who entered! Winners to be announced by Monday.

The RTL-SDR and SDR community spans multiple disciplines and there are many wildly different projects being worked on by SDR enthusiasts as regular readers of our blog may already know. We want to thank all our readers with a competition and at the same time get everyone to share what projects you are all working on.

There are four chances to enter the contest and you may enter in all four competitions. On each method we will give away 5 RTL-SDR blog dongle + antenna units. Competition ends in one week on the 22nd of January at 23:59 hrs (midnight) PST time. Winners will be notified in the following 1-2 days and we will do a post about it too.

Competition Entry 1) Like us on Facebook and make a comment on the the contest post mentioning what SDR related projects you are currently working on, or plan to work on in the future.

Competition Entry 2) Follow us on Twitter and tweet at us @rtlsdrblog mentioning the SDR related projects you are currently working on, or plan to work on in the future.

Competition Entry 3) Make a comment on this very blog post mentioning what SDR related projects you are currently working on, or plan to work on in the future. (Please include a contact email address in the email field – it will only be visible to us and we won’t use it for anything else, promise!)

Competition Entry 4) Sign up to our email mailing list here or on the right hand navigation menu. (we send out a once weekly digest of the weeks posts).

 

We want to hear about any and all projects, no matter how simple you might think they are! At the end of the competition we will randomly select five winners from each competition entry method and contact them. Please remember to check your Facebook/Twitter/email accounts if your name comes up when the winners are announced.

Rules: Only one entry per person per method! E.g. you can enter once on Facebook, once on Twitter, once by commenting here, and once by signing up to our mailing list. No duplicate accounts are allowed. You must be legally be allowed to receive and own an RTL-SDR dongle to enter.

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Andrew MacPherson

I am planning on completing the write up for how to do a code grabbing attack (the same as samy kamkars rolljam) where you use two YS1’s — one to jam and the other to capture and replay the captured codes to bypass rolling code systems (like cars/garages). I have already done the groundwork for the YS1 writeups done at https://andrewmohawk.com/2015/08/31/hacking-fixed-key-remotes-with-only-rfcat/ and this will hopefully be an additional to that.

I completed a talk on it so now just to do the writeup and you can see the cool moneyshot video we made at https://vimeo.com/140315524

After that I would like to optimize it further to a single YS1 or similar SDR 🙂

-AM

Sayandeep Khan

I will use the unit to recieve APT from Eumetsat, and overlay it on a live (crowdsourced) weather map. Both weather data, and concurrent satellite imagery will be publicly available.

Patrick Barthelow

Submission for RTL-SDR competitions;
by Patrick Barthelow [email protected] 1/22/2016:
My RTL-SDR projects will involve working with several 3 and 4-letter Gov’t Agencies’ and Educational institutions’ STEM and Public outreach departments to mentor and develop a cheap student built and optimized, space communications receiver in conjunction with cheap, to higher end very low noise Amplifiers,
( such as: G4DDK models http://www.g4ddk.com/VLNASept13.pdf
and cheap, easy to make, high gain antennas, starting with conical horns;
Photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/… ).
This cheap and effective space communications receive system will be designed to hear and decode very weak signal communications such as Deep space Cubesats,
http://www.nasa.gov/…/centennial…/cubequest/index.html
(https://www.nasa.gov/…/nasa-opens-cube-quest-challenge… ),
https://www.facebook.com/alphacubesat/?fref=ts http://www.alphacubesat.com/wordpress/ ,
) Moonbounce Beacons, (ON0EME: http://www.on0eme.org/ and: http://users.skynet.be/…/1296%20MHz%20moon%20beacon.pdf ) and Lunar Lander Vehicles.
Follow closely and collaborate with the current expert Space Craft Monitoring wizard,
Sven Grahn, ( http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/ ) on how to apply cheap SDRs to Space Outreach and operational space communications.
Devise a competition for people young and young at heart to earn a QSL card award for Space Listening achievements. Similar to that awarded to radio amateurs and researchers at Project Diana, the world’s first moonbounce experiments at Ft Monmouth New Jersey by the US Army Signal Corps. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Diana
END

Adithya

Pa0rdt active mini whip antenna

James spaedt

Im a simple trunker but my son is doing some amazing things with my cheap nooelec and a femtocell.please I want my dongle back lol

Silvestre Grimaldo

Use the RTL-SDR dongle to learn the radio frequency of old projector screen remote to use with PC for home automation. Basically I want to control my projector from my computer.

Andrew MacPherson

Check out http://andrewmohawk.com/2012/09/06/hacking-fixed-key-remotes/ its with fixed key AM/OOK remotes, but yours could be very similar

catherine g

I’m working on a senior design project at UCSC, department of Engineering. We’re doing a SDR project to benefit our school’s arc chapter.

Ben Hall

Currently receiving ACARS and ADS-B with a pair of RTL-SDR dongles. The ACARS antenna is inside, so next step is to get it outside and perhaps add an FM broadcast filter.

Andrea

I’m working on my SDR audio recorder project, adding features like limiting the recording by minutes, maximum record size, ecc… https://github.com/cybernova/SDRecord

Austin b

I’m planning on setting up a radio telescope and also working on adding ads-b coverage to my area!

Stephen McBain

Starting out at the basics and using a dongle to decode different signals and just learning radio.

DSV

Trunked communication, search and analysis of signals

Jimmy Vance

Just getting started with SDR. Experimenting as general purpose receiver below 30 MHz and spectrum analyzer.

John

I am building my first SDR radio project that just appeared in the January 2016 QST Ham Radio journal. The design includes and up converter to allow tuning 30mhz down to about 1khz. After reading about the various SDR dongles it appears the ones with a TCXO oscillator is almost mandatory to stabilize drift.

Tony Holmes

Hi all,
I`ve been building some UHF discones using PCB material for top flat section,With a long neck SMA female
PCB mount connector.Of course you need to isolate the ground pins from the SMA on the PCB.(sharp knife or etch) The cone section is made from thin brass sheet soldered together.
For the discone design go here… http://www.changpuak.ch/electronics/calc_11.php
For the Cone PDF printable template,Found this site… http://www.blocklayer.com/cone-patterns.aspx
Don`t forget to add overlap for soldering the cone together when you cut the A4 paper printed template.

Another project using RTL dongle was to make two 6 element yagis for satcom 240mhz to 300mhz.
Each is designed for around 261mhz. Set up one yagi to 250.550 carrier to the best signal direction.
Now set up the other for best signal at 250.650mhz.(Both mounted at ground level for best signal)
Once done join the to together using a cheap tv two way antenna splitter.
Now run a length of coax inside to a LNA4ALL or other preamp + 200mhz (approx) Highpass filter to your Dongle
Works much better than I expected, Using HDSDR there are well received signals all over the range.
For a great free yagi calculator try…. http://www.vk5dj.com/yagi.html
The highpass filter is made from 5 components for 190mhz…..
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electronics/bw%20tee%20high%20pass.htm
cheers.

Anonymous

Working on a ADS-B receiver project.

MrGrady

I’m working on a tunable active preselector boxed with up-converter and rtl.
In the future I would like to make a portable broadband spectrum analyzer with two or more rtl.

Marla

I’m working on a remote ADS-B setup using raspberry pi2 and rtl-sdr. It will also stream the audio from gqrx or other sdr software, also remotely controlled, to ear planes talking while using ADS-B or for swl-ing in HF.

WB9SBD

I plan on monitoring the beacons on 2 meters to detect possible band openings.

73
Joe WB9SBD

echo

I’m currently working on direct sampling mode, band pass filters and various frequency converters to enhance HF reception. Planning to build a raspberry-based pmr446 repeater, weather station, webcam, ADS-B, swl-ing remote server up on a hill near my qth.

Frank K2NCC

The SDR project I’m currently working on is the MATLAB / RTLSDR book.
comment image

Using it to monitor ADS-B during this screenshot:
comment image

If interested, the book can downloaded free here:
http://www.mathworks.com/support/books/book106132.html

or buy a copy that doesn’t require electricity:
http://tinyurl.com/matlabrtlsdrbook2016

I don’t have the metal enclosure ones yet, but a peek inside what I do have from RTLSDRblog:
comment image

vy 73, de frank k2ncc in Oregon

Steve Robey KG7WPQ

I’m currently developing ways to track using APRS offline and exploring different ways of doing this. I would also like to make it into something affordable and compact that can be taken into the field for HAB launches, high powered rocket launches and other similar things. You can’t always rely on cell phone service, especially when you’re tracking something falling from 90,000 feet up that could go anywhere. A compact SDR dongle could potentially be the perfect solution for offline APRS tracking.

Tom

As an Electrical Engineering student, I have become fascinated with software radio and exploring what it has to offer. My first experiment was making my own 1090MHz ADS-B antenna. Right now, I am trying to build a NOAA satellite receiver by constructing my own RHCP antenna. I have also started to explore antenna theory. I can’t wait until next year for my first Digital Signal Processing class!

Steve Robey KG7WPQ

Have you considered building a Lindenblad antenna? I’m working with a local ham friend to design a good fixed position antenna for weather satellite downlink. As an alternative to a directional antenna that has to be constantly pointed at the source satellite. We are also considering a slightly tweaked version of the eggbeater. Just sharing my two cents.

Russell

Working on building a portable full bandwidth touch screen scanner for the US Ham bands based on either a raspberry pi or a pine a64+

Henk

Currently listening to Rotterdam Airport Tower (Netherlands) and sometimes receiving P2000 messages (local fire department and ambulance paging messages). All of this is working flawlessly!

Noob

I’ve been interested in amateur radio (listening) for years but never really got involved other than a cheap radio shack scanner. SDR has lowered the entry price enough for me to get more involved. My first project is just going to be to learn about the things that can be done with SDR, and learn about all the available signals.

Bradley H

Currently playing around with ADS-B, but would like to move into sat tracking

Brian Whelan

I am testing various commercially available dongles for sensitivity and selectivity, across the radio spectrum from HF up to SHF. The absence of “RF pollution” in rural Ireland allows many facets of RF testing, in particular on the most used segments of spectrum. Also testing various grounding methods with different dongles, especially with grounding methods of the USB interconnectivity