Tagged: opus

QRadioLink Development Webpage Now Up

Back in September we posted [1, 2] about the QRadioLink software which is an RTL-SDR compatible digital amateur radio voice decoder and encoder program for Linux and Android (with chroot). It supports modern digital voice codecs like Codec2 and Opus. It is capable of being used with multiple SDRs, and can be used for transmitting digital voice too if you have a transmit capable SDR.

Andrian the developer recently wrote in to let us know that QRadioLink now has a website at qradiolink.org that you can follow for updates about its development. The website also explains some of the features of the software, and lists possible performance values of digital voice. The features include:

  • Receives and transmits analog voice, digital voice, low resolution video, text, IP protocol.
  • Narrow band modem with Codec2 or wideband modem and Opus.
  • Digital Modems: BPSKQPSK2FSK4FSK
  • Modes: narrow FM, SSB, digital voice, digital video, digital data
  • Formats: Codec2 700B, Codec2 1400, Opus 10 kbit/s
  • Video formats: JPEG
  • Supported hardware: Ettus USRP, RTL-SDR, HackRF, BladeRF and in general all devices supported by gr-osmosdr

Typical Receiver performance is given in the following table, with all values being measured on an R820T RTL-SDR.

Mode Condition Sensitivity (dBm)
Codec2 700B 20 db SINAD -115
Codec2 1400 20 db SINAD -112
Opus 20 db SINAD -102
Narrow FM 12 db SINAD -118

In the future Adrian hopes to expand the software to include features like VOIP integration, SSB transceiver, DTMF & CTCSS encoder/decoders, multi-channel RX, HD video, remote control and a GUI improvement.

QRadioLink Main Page

Comparing SSB, NFM, Codec2 and Opus with QRadioLink and an RTL-SDR

Earlier in the month we posted about Adrian M’s video that showed his QRadioLink software running on Android with an RTL-SDR. QRadioLink is a digital amateur radio voice decoder and encoder, that currently supports modern digital voice codecs like Codec2 and Opus. It’s compatible with a wide range of SDRs including the RTL-SDR, as well as TX capable SDRs for transmitting.

Over on YouTube Adrian M has recently uploaded a new video showing a comparison of QRadioLink receiving SSB, NFM, Codec2 and Opus voice signals at the same initial power levels. The results show that the digital modes are generally much clearer and static free even at low TX levels. He writes:

The Linux SDR transceiver application QRadioLink uses here an RTL-SDR dongle for reception. The QRadioLink transmit chain is using an USRP B200 with output power set at about half the maximum. The Codec2 digital mode works down to a low CNR (6 dB) where even SSB is hard to copy. The Opus mode provides good voice quality at a level where analog narrow FM is noisy.
The code for QRadioLink is fully open-source, licensed under GPLv3, and can be found on Github, where it’s undergoing development. Bug reports, patches and suggestions are welcome.

QRadioLink is available over on GitHub.