Tagged: noise figure

SDRAngel Features Overview: ADS-B, APT, DVB-S, DAB+, AIS, VOR, APRS, and many more built-in apps

SDRAngel is a general purpose software defined radio program that is compatible with most SDRs including the RTL-SDR. We've posted about it several times before on the blog, however we did not realize how much progress has occurred with developing various built in plugins and decoders for it.

Thanks to Jon for writing in and sharing with us a demonstration video that the SDRAngel team have released on their YouTube channel. From the video we can see that SDRAngel now comes stock with a whole host of built in decoders and apps for various radio applications making it close to an all-in-one SDR platform. The built in applications include:

  • ADS-B Decoder: Decodes aircraft ADS-B data and plots aircraft positions on a map
  • NOAA APT Decoder: Decodes NOAA weather satellite images (in black and white only)
  • DVB-S: Decodes and plays Digital TV DVB-S and DVB-S2 video
  • AIS: Decodes marine AIS data and plots vessel positions on a map
  • VOR: Decodes VOR aircraft navigational beacons, and plots bearing lines on a map, allowing you to determine your receivers position.
  • DAB+: Decodes and plays DAB digital audio signals
  • Radio Astronomy Hydrogen Line: With an appropriate radio telescope connected to the SDR, integrates and displays the Hydrogen Line FFT with various settings, and a map of the galaxy showing where your dish is pointing. Can also control a dish rotator.
  • Radio Astronomy Solar Observations: Similar to the Hydrogen line app, allows you to make solar measurements.
  • Broadcast FM: Decoding and playback. Includes RDS decoding.
  • Noise Figure Measurements: Together with a noise source you can measure the noise figure of a SDR.
  • Airband Voice: Receive multiple Airband channels simultaneously
  • Graves Radar Tracker: For Europeans, track a satellite and watch for reflections in the spectrum from the French Graves space radar. 
  • Radio Clocks: Receive and decode accurate time from radio clocks such as MSF, DCF77, TDF and WWVB.
  • APRS: Decode APRS data, and plot APRS locations and moving APRS enabled vehicles on a map with speed plot.
  • Pagers: Decode POCSAG pagers
  • APRS/AX.25 Satellite: Decode APRS messages from the ISS and NO-84 satellites, via the built in decoder and satellite tracker.
  • Channel Analyzer: Analyze signals in the frequency and time domains
  • QSO Digital and Analog Voice: Decode digital and analog voice. Digital voice handled by the built in DSD demodulator, and includes DMR, dPMR and D-Star.
  • Beacons: Monitor propagation via amateur radio beacons, and plot them on a map.

We note that the video doesn't show the following additional features such as an analog TV decoder, the SDRAngel "ChirpChat" text mode, a FreeDV decoder and several other features.

Measuring the Noise Figure of Airspy and HackRF SDRs in Real Time

The Noise Figure (NF) is an important metric for low noise amplifiers and SDRs. It's a measure of how much components in the signal chain degrade the SNR of a signal, so a low noise figure metric indicates a more sensitive receiver. The Noise Figure of a radio system is almost entirely determined by the very first amplifier in the signal chain (the one closest to the antenna), which is why it can be very beneficial to have a low NF LNA placed right at the antenna

Over on his blog Rowetel has been attempting to measure the noise figure of his HackRF and Airspy, and also with the SDRs connected to an LNA. He's managed to come up with a method for measuring the noise figure of these devices in real time. The method involves using a GNU Octave script that he created and a calibrated signal generator.

It’s a GNU Octave script called nf_from_stdio.m that accepts a sample stream from stdio. It assumes the signal contains a sine wave test tone from a calibrated signal generator, and noise from the receiver under test. By sampling the test tone it can establish the gain of the receiver, and by sampling the noise spectrum an estimate of the noise power.

As expected, Rowetel found that the overall noise figure was significantly reduced with the LNA in place, with the Airspy's measuring a noise figure of 1.7/2.2 dB, and the HackRF measuring at 3.4 dB. Without the LNA in place, the Airspy's had a noise figure of 7/7.9 dB, whilst the HackRF measured at 11.1 dB.

Some very interesting sources of noise figure degradation were discovered during Rowetel's tests. For example the Airspy measured a NF 1 dB worse when used on a different USB port, and using a USB extension cable with ferrites helped too. He also found that lose connectors could make the NF a few dB's worse, and even the position of the SDR and other equipment on his desk had an effect.

Noise figure measurement
Noise figure measurement

A Video Explaining LNA Noise Temperature Calculations

Over on YouTube Adam 9A4QV (creator of the LNA4ALL and other products) has uploaded a video that explains Friis formula for noise, using simple calculations and theory. These calculations explain why an LNA can significantly help reception on L-Band with an RTL-SDR. In his video he uses graphs and tables provided in this document released by the US Naval Academy. At the end of this post we attached images of the graph and table that he uses in the videos calculations for easy access.

The calculations show how the noise figure and gain of the first LNA in the system dominates the result. The final result of his video shows that using an LNA with a noise figure of 1 dB and 16 dB gain can give an improvement in SNR of about 7.8 dB over a standard RTL-SDR which has a noise figure of 6 dB. This is the improvement on L-band from simply placing the LNA by the dongle, and it does not take into account the extra improvement that could be had by placing it by the antenna, if a run of coax is used. The equations can also be adapted to other frequencies, and they show that as the frequency decreases, the effect of the noise figure of the LNA becomes less important.

ant_noiseratios

Creating a FSK SSDV data system for High Altitude Balloons

David and Mark are building a 115 kbit/s FSK SSDV (slow scan digital video) data system for high altitude balloons. In their system, on the balloon transmit side they use a Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi camera and a RFM22B wireless transceiver modulator board to transmit the SSDV FSK signal. On the receive side they use an RTL-SDR dongle, low noise preamplifier and a GNU Radio program to demodulate the SSDV images. The first video below demonstrates the hardware and GNU Radio program and shows them receiving the SSDV signal. In the second video they demonstrate that the images can be received at low signal levels (-106dBm) as well, by heavily attenuating the signal.

115.2kbaud FSK Modem Test

115.387kbaud FSK Modem Test - Part 2

If you are interested, all their code for the SSDV system has been uploaded to https://github.com/projecthorus/HorusHighSpeed.

While testing the RTL-SDR for use in this system they also measured the noise figure of an R820T RTL-SDR dongle. The noise figure at maximum gain comes out at around 5.6 dB. By adding a low noise amplifier they reduce the measured noise figure down to 2 dB.

Testing the attenuated SSDV signal reception with an RTL-SDR.
Testing the attenuated SSDV signal reception with an RTL-SDR.

CANFI: Cheap Automatic Noise Figure Indicator Updated to V2.7

Back in July 2014 we posted about the CANFI (Cheap Automatic Noise Figure Indicator) system. The CANFI system is a set of hardware components that include an RTL-SDR and a corresponding software program for control. Back then the CANFI system only supported E4000 dongles. However, recently CANFI was updated to version 2.7 and now supports the R820T/2 tuners as well. The documentation has also been heavily improved. The authors of CANFI introduce their system as follows:

One of the main tasks for an experimenting microwave amateur is to measure the Gain (G) and Noise Figure (NF) of a particular receiving device. For this one will need a Noise Figure Indicator and a (calibrated) Noise Source.

There are a number of commercial devices available from different vendors at prices which will exceed an amateur’s budget by many times. A lot of them can be found on the surplus market but this doesn’t help very much. A combination of both meter and noise source is barely sold below the 2.000€ margin.

Since a lot of cheap DVB – T sticks became available the idea was born to use it together with a homebrew noise source as a very cheap alternative to commercial devices [1]. It is now possible to build a suitable solution within a budget of 100 – 200€. Using a PC with USB port for communication and power supply such a device is very compact and almost compatible to an industrial solution. Special software gives a convenient user interface. Last not least you can reuse the DVB-T stick (together with the preamplifier) as a sensitive receiver along with SDR software.

To create a CANFI system you will need an RTL-SDR, a MGZ 30889 preamp, a noise source, a 28V boost converter to power the noise source and a serial to USB converter to control the noise source.

The CANFI GUI
The CANFI GUI

Some E4000 RTL-SDR Noise Figure Measurements

Over on Avian’s blog author Tomaz has posted about some noise figure measurements he has done with an E4000 RTL-SDR dongle. To do the measurements he used a vector signal generator and used the “Y-factor” and “twice-power” measurement methods with the output measured in GNU Radio.

In his results Tomaz saw some odd peculiarities as the twice-power and Y-factor measurements disagreed, coming out with noise figure values of 17.0 dB and 13.6 dB’s respectively. He isn’t sure what could be causing this disagreement but speculates that there must be some sort of physical process within the dongle causing these differences. He was also concerned about the larger than expected noise figure values, since the E4000 datasheet specifies a noise figure of 4 dB, though he points out that these datasheet values may be best case values only.

Measuring the noise figure of an E4000 RTL-SDR.
Measuring the noise figure of an E4000 RTL-SDR with a vector signal generator.

Making a Cheap Noise Figure Indicator with an RTL-SDR

Amateur radio hobbyists Frank Schmaling (DL2ALF), Wolf-Henning Rech (DF9IC) and Alexander Kurpiers (DL8AAU) have uploaded a pdf document containing slides which show how they made a cheap noise figure indicator using an E4000 RTL-SDR dongle. A noise figure indicator can be used to check the noise figure of various components used in RF applications.

The hardware of the device consists of an RTL-SDR, a MGZ 30889 preamp, a noise source, a 28V boost converter to power the noise source and a serial to USB converter to control the noise source. They also created their own custom software in C# to go along with the hardware.

Their results showed that this setup was comparable to a professional noise figure test set.

RTL-SDR based Noise Figure Indicator
RTL-SDR based Noise Figure Indicator
Noise Figure Indicator Software
Noise Figure Indicator Software