Tagged: beaglebone black

Beaglebone Black FM/Internet Radio Combo Receiver using an RTL-SDR

Last year we missed this interesting project by Frederick Vandenbosch where he created a FM/internet radio combination receiver using a BeagleBone Black mini embedded PC and an RTL-SDR dongle.

The idea is that the system will receive FM radio through the RTL-SDR normally, but when reception is poor or unavailable you can switch to internet radio which is received through WiFi. The radio is controlled through an LCD screen attached to the BeagleBone Black.

Frederick used Linux on the BeagleBone and created a custom GUI that allows for easy tuning using rtl_fm as the RTL-SDR back end, setting channel presets and for switching between internet and live FM radio.

BeagleBone Blade FM/Internet Radio Combo Receiver
BeagleBone Blade FM/Internet Radio Combo Receiver
Beaglebone Black Digital Radio with RTL-SDR and Wifi

BeagleBone Black Image File with RTL-SDR + GNU Radio + More

A ready to go Ubuntu 14.04 image file for the BeagleBone Black that contains various SDR related resources for the RTL-SDR and other SDRs like the HackRF has been released by KD0CQ. The BeagleBone Black is a small embedded PC that is powerful enough to run many SDR software programs. The image file is very useful as installing some software like GNU Radio on an embedded PC can be very tedious. Below is a list of software included in the image file.

  • GNURadio 3.7
  • keenerd’s rtlsdr bundle
  • gqrx
  • multimode (having issues compiling, will contact author. Prob compatibility issues with gnuradio 3.7)
  • LTE-Cell-Scanner
  • LTE-Tracker
  • multimon – Pogsac Pager Decoder
  • rtl_flex_noX – Flex Pager Decoder
  • SuperKuh’s Dongle Logger – pyrtlsdr – Fast version
  • rtl_433
  • SDR-J
  • rtl_sdr wide spectrum analyzer
  • DSD 1.7
  • RTLAMR
  • RTL_FM_Python
BeagleBone Black
BeagleBone Black

Demonstrating GQRX Running on a BeagleBone Black with RTL-SDR

YouTube user Brad Bowers has posted a video showing GQRX running on his BeagleBone Black with an RTL-SDR dongle. The BeagleBone Black is an embedded Linux computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi, but with significantly more processing power. He found that GQRX actually performed quite responsively on the BeagleBone.

Beagle Bone Black as Rtl-SDR front end with gqrx

ViewRF – RTL-SDR Spectrum Analyzer Software for the BeagleBone Black Released

Last month we showed a video of a spectrum analyzer project by Stephen Ong. He used a BeagleBone Black (mini embedded Linux capable computer similar to a Raspberry Pi), a touch capable LCD screen, and an RTL-SDR dongle to create a portable spectrum analyzer.

Now Stephen has released ‘ViewRF’, which is the software that powers his spectrum analyzer. It is released under the GPL licence. Also on his post are the download and install instructions.

Spectrum Analyzer using Beaglebone Black and RTL-SDR