Tagged: rtl-sdr

New RTL-SDR Adaptation for HF and VHF/UHF For Sale

A few months ago we saw a Hungarian hardware developer selling a custom RTL-SDR software defined radio which included an upconverter built into the PCB.

Now a new Brazilian hardware developer has begun selling similar home made RTL-SDR units that can receive HF by default. Note that the page is in Portuguese, but Google translate does a reasonable job at translating.

These units come in a nice box and are capable of receiving between 0 to 1750Mhz.  Attached to the box are two UHF (SO-259) 50 Ohm connectors, one for an HF antenna and one  and a USB port. The developer also provides a CD which seems to come with the drivers, SDRSharp and some plugins. We aren’t sure if this SDR is using direct sampling or an upconverter to get HF signals as there don’t seem to be many details about the modifications made on the page.

The price is $185 Brazilian Reals, which is about $82 USD.

Combined RTL-SDR and Upconverter

The page links to a video showing the SDR in action which is shown below.

SDR Touch Updated to Version 1.6

Version 1.6 of the popular Android based RTL-SDR software defined radio software, SDRTouch has been released. News comes via this forum post.

This release adds the following

  • Waterfall
  • Speed optimizations
  • Fixed squelch clicks
  • Fixed a few crash cases

They have also made the FFT engine about 3 – 4 times faster than in previous versions.

Download it from the Google Play store

sdtouch

Decoding Pagers on the Raspberry Pi with RTL-SDR

Hackaday has brought to attention a tutorial written on the Raspberry Pi forums by Sonny_Jim showing how to decode pager transmissions on the Raspberry Pi. In the tutorial he also shows how to set up a web server to be able to view the decoded transmissions in a web browser.

He uses a RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi and pipes the output of rtl_fm into the multimonNG software to decode the messages.

Tutorial: HF Decoding Tour with the FUNcube Dongle Pro+

On the FUNcube Dongle blog/store amateur radio enthusiast DK80K (a.k.a Nils) has sent in a link to a 16 page pdf file showing a comprehensive tour on the FUNcube Dongle Pro+’s capabilities on the HF spectrum.

He gives an overview of many digital ham and HF utility modes including DRM, WSPR, RTTY, Olivia, MFSK16, PSK31, Pactor, Packet, Hellschreiben, ROS, SSTV, HF ACARS, SSB, CW, DSC/GMDSS, SITOR-A/B, Globe Wireless, Time Signals, ALE, Baudot, FAX and Stanag 4285.

The FUNcube is a software defined radio similar to the RTL-SDR, but with better sensitivity and noise performance, but at a higher price (around $200 USD). These modes can also be received with the RTL-SDR and an upconverter such as the Nooelec Ham-It-Up upconverter.

Download his pdf here (Mirror)

Portable RTL-SDR Running on Raspberry Pi

Over on Reddit user olgierd has posted a video on this thread showing his work on developing a portable software defined radio based on an RTL-SDR R820T, the rtl_fm software and a Raspberry Pi with LCD screen. The software is based on rtl_fm which has the capability to demodulate FM/AM/SSB signals. His video shows him tuning to various signals using a tuning knob.

Note that his setup is capable of playing the audio, but it is not shown in the video as he only had earbuds connected. In the future he hopes to make it more portable by adding a li-ion battery.

RTL-SDR Tutorial: Receiving Weather Balloon (Radiosonde) Data with RTL-SDR

Around the world meteorological weather balloons are launched twice daily, and continuously transit weather telemetry to a ground station using something called a radiosonde. The RTL-SDR software defined radio combined with a decoding program can be used to intercept this telemetry, and display it on your own computer. You will be able to see real time graphs and data of air temperature, humidity, pressure as well as the location and height of the balloon as it makes it's ascent.

Note that if you are in the USA, then this tutorial may not be applicable for you as different radiosondes are used. Instead have a look at this post which shows how to use the SkySonde software from NOAA. You can also try an alternative command line based decoder called RS available on GitHub.

This tutorial is also applicable to other software defined radios such as the Funcube dongle, Airspy, HackRF, BladeRF or even hardware radios with discriminator taps, but the RTL-SDR is the cheapest option that will work.

Examples

In this example YouTube user Superphish shows a radiosonde being received and decoded using a RTL-SDR, SDRSharp and SondeMonitor.

Weather Balloon (Radiosonde) tracking with RTL SDR (RTL2832), Sondemonitor and SDR Sharp

Continue reading →

How to Calibrate RTL-SDR using Kalibrate-RTL on Linux

YouTube user NeedSec has posted a good tutorial video showing how to use Kalibriate-RTL, a program used to determine the frequency offset error of your RTL-SDR dongle. Every RTL-SDR dongle will have a small frequency error as it is cheaply mass produced and not tested for accuracy.  This frequency error is linear across the spectrum, and can be adjusted in most SDR programs by entering a PPM (parts per million) offset value.

Kalibrate is a Linux program that uses GSM mobile cell phone base stations to determine the PPM offset, by using the GSM signals own frequency correction bursts. See the tutorial video below.