Tagged: rtl2832u

More Reports and Tests on the RTL-SDR V3

Recently we sent document author “D. B. Gain” a sample RTL-SDR V3, so that he could write a review and guide on it. The guide is now available at http://www.udxf.nl/ute-info.html, and the link to the guide is labelled “The RTL-SDR V3” and is under the “HOW TO …” section. The guide reviews the V3 and tests it out on reception of HF signals. He uses an off center fed dipole up around 30ft, RG6 cable TV coax feedlink and a Barker and Williamson 30 MHz low pass filter. He write this valuable piece of advice:

The larger the antenna system, the greater the gain – usually. It doesn’t take too much RF to overload the V3 dongle, so a 20ft piece of wire will do better than say a 430ft wire loop atop some phone poles. Use an attenuator if you have one. Remember the issue with AMBC swamping where AM stations pop up in various parts of the HF spectrum and use a preselector and/or attenuator if you can. Shortwave broadcast stations can also create spurs in the V3. Some radio parts houses carry a variable attenuator meant for cable TV or VCR player use that can be employed at HF with the use of some F to UHF or whatever connector your antenna system employs adaptor, this can be installed in the antenna system and adjusted to result in least usable signal getting to the V3, which assures best dynamic range. Then one would adjust the FFT Spectrum gain in your SDR control app of choice to best level on a quiet band, say 14MHz. This will ensure you don’t have to mess with adjusting the gain on lower frequency bands just to keep the band noise baseline above the bottom of the FFT window.

Mr. “Gain” has also uploaded several other screenshots of the V3 in action on HF in this gallery.

The RTL-SDR V3 receiving ham radio signals on 40m.
The RTL-SDR V3 receiving ham radio signals on 40m.

Mikael Dagman (SA6BSS) also wrote in to let us know about how he’s been using the V3 to receive WSPR. He writes:

For an experiment I have set up a SDR play and a RTL blog v3 dongle fed from the same antenna (butternut hf9) through an antenna splitter, grabbing Qrss signals on 40m, on the v3 I added a bpf. The v3 is run from SDR sharp q-branch RTL AGC on and both radios feeding separete instances of spectrum labs, doing wspr as the same time on both radios, there I hardly any difference, maby one spot out of ten the rsp get 1 db more in sn . Without the filter on the v3 its completely falling apart but with the filter inline I am more then impressed!!

I will stay on 40m for a couple of days trying to catch a ZL station tx:ing with 1.1W Qrss with the v3, (that’s 16000 km away) I will then qsy to 30m with the v3 where there is more signals to look at.

Spectrum available here http://www.qsl.net/sa6bss/
You see that bottom spectrum have the name RTL upper left corner.

Over on YouTube Leif (SM5BSZ) has also uploaded a video where he compares the performance of the RTL-SDR V3 with the Airspy+SpyVerter. Of course the V3 cannot compete with the higher end Airspy, but still performs decently enough for a beginner. If you are strapped for time, the results are concluded at about 28 minutes.

Testing the Outernet-In-A-Box Virtual Machine Decoder for Windows & Linux

Back in September we posted a tutorial that showed how to set up an Outernet receiver with a Raspberry Pi running their rxOS software and an RTL-SDR, LNA and patch antenna. Recently, Outernet have released a new decoder for Windows and Linux which is very easy to install and run. Outernet is an L-band satellite data service which can be received almost anywhere in the world with an RTL-SDR. They aim to be a “library in the sky”, constantly broadcasting public data like news, books, images/videos and other data files.

The new decoder is a Linux machine that runs in a self contained multiplatform Virtual Box virtual machine. This means that it is a standalone package, and it comes included with the OS, decoder, and all the files needed to make it run. Using a virtual machine eliminates any installation issues due to missing dependencies or libraries. Running the VM in Windows is as easy as double clicking on a .exe file to open it up. Note that you’ll need a relatively modern machine that supports hardware virtualization support (VT-x) (Core 2 or newer). The virtual machine itself is lightweight, and uses less than 50MB of RAM, and has very low CPU usage.

At the moment, the decoder writes files downloaded from the Outernet service to a directory stored in C:\Outernet\downloads. Unlike the Raspberry Pi decoder, there is no web interface for accessing the content, though this will probably be added in future builds. The files can be directly accessed in the Windows/Linux file managers.

To set up the VM on a Windows machine:

  1. Download the Windows .exe archive and open it. When prompted, extract the files to a convenient folder on your PC.
  2. Plug in your RTL-SDR and LNA, and set up your L-band antenna.
  3. In the extracted folder run the outernet.exe file once. This will open the decoder and the first time it is run it will automatically create a folder in C:\Outernet.
  4. If you are in the Europe/Africa and use the Alphasat satellite then you can ignore this step. If you are in another region, close the opened VM, then go to C:\Outernet\Satellites.Available, and then copy the file corresponding to the satellite used in your part of the world over to C:\Outernet\Satellites.Selected. Now reopen the outernet.exe VM.
  5. The decoder should now be showing a good SNR value >2 in the top right information, and the State: should show FRAME LK. The bottom right window should also scroll “Packed written to socket.”
  6. After a few minutes check the C:\Outernet\cache folder for pieces of files. Later check the C:\Outernet\downloads folder for completed files.

Further instructions can be found on their Windows Readme file. Note that as there is no web browser for the files, some will be downloaded as GZipped files, and will need to be unzipped to be viewed. For more information on the Outernet service as well as the hardware requirements see our previous tutorial.

We tested out the VM on a Windows laptop for a few hours and was able to receive several GZipped Wikipedia webpages as well as a photo, as shown in the screenshot below.

Files downloaded from Outernet (left). Outernet decoder running in VM (right).
Files downloaded from Outernet (left). Outernet decoder running in VM (right).

Comparing the RTL-SDR, FunCube PRO Plus and SDRplay on Moon Bounce/EME Reception

Moon Bounce or “Earth Moon Earth” (EME) is an amateur radio activity where people attempt to transmit a signal towards to the moon, and listen to the reflected signal. In some cases a separate transmitter is not needed, as an already powerful constant transmitter like the GRAVES radar in France can be used.

Over on his YouTube channel user cqpy2rn has uploaded a video showing his moon bounce reception of the GRAVES radar using an eleven element yagi antenna. He compares the reception with an RTL-SDR, FunCube PRO Plus and SDRplay. He writes:

+++ Nooelec model NESDR Smart (RTL-SDR) +++
GOODs: Price $20, frequency stability 0.5ppm tcxo, aluminum case, firm sma antenna connector, better dynamic range than regular-cheaper RTL dongles. Easy gain adjustment.
BADs: No pass filters, freq coverage from 24MHz to 1.7GHz, poor dynamic range (moderate de-sense with near strong signals)

+++ FunCube PRO PLUS – FCDPP +++
GOODs: freq coverage from 150KHz to 2GHz, pass saw filters, frequency stable 0.5ppm tcxo, easy gain adjustment, acceptable dynamic range.
BADs: Plastic case, fragile sma connector, just 192KHz wide spectrum view, price $160.

+++ SDRPlay +++
GOODs: Frequecy coverage from 10KHz to 2GHz, firm SMA connector, pass saw filters, up to 8MHz wide spectrum view, acceptable dynamic range.
BADs: Plastic case, legacy printer USB connector, frequency drift during warm up, difficult gain adjustment

CONCLUSION: In essence all these have the same “DNA”, they were made from digital TV tuner chips, comparisons produce very similar RX practical results, the RTL suffers due the lack of internal filtering which can be a little remediated adjusting the gain carefully through your SDR software or adding external filters. FCDPP and SDRPlay are vey similar, although the freq drift for SDRPlay is a bit annoying to me.

Nooelec RTL vs. FunCube PRO Plus vs. SDRPlay (VHF 143MHz graves via EME test)

RTLSDR4Everyone: SDRUno 1.04 Guide Updated, and Overview of RTL-SDR Generations

Akos from the RTLSDR4Everyone blog has recently released two new posts. The first post is a tutorial on the set up and use of SDRUno. SDRUno is the official software of the SDRplay, but supports the RTL-SDR too, albeit with an artificial 0.96MSPS (1 MHz) sampling rate/bandwidth limit. The guide starts from the download of SDRUno, shows how to select the 0.96 MSPS sampling rate and goes over the interface and some of the features of the software.

In his second post Akos discusses the topic of what he feels is the different generations of RTL-SDR dongles that we’ve seen come out over the years. He also speculates at what new features we might see coming in the future.

rtl-sdr dongle generations

Using the RTL-SDR as a Panadapter for the IC-751A

A panadapter is a device that connects to a standard hardware radio and allows you to visually see the RF signals on a waterfall. Since SDR’s run on the PC, they naturally have the ability to display a panadapter screen, and most software like SDR#, HDSDR and SDR-Console already provide this. The RTL-SDR can also be used to add panadapter capabilities to a regular hardware radio. 

Gary Rondeau has been using the RTL-SDR as a panadapter for his IC-751A, which is a high quality ham radio transceiver. In his first post, Gary shows how he connected the RTL-SDR in a block diagram, and then shows how he interfaces the RTL-SDR and IC-751A together using HDSDR and the Omnirig software.

Block diagram showing the RTL-SDR as a Panadapter with the IC-751A and HDSDR.
Block diagram showing the RTL-SDR as a Panadapter with the IC-751A and HDSDR.

In his second post he shows a comparison between decoding JT65 and JT9 signals directly from the IC-751A audio output, vs via the RTL-SDR & HDSDR panadapter connection. His results show that as long as there is sufficient signal level, the RTL-SDR as a panadapter can match the performance of the raw IC-751A audio output, even producing less signal splatter on strong signals due to the pure numerical vs analogue mixing strategies of SDRs vs analogue radios.

RTL-SDR (top) vs raw audio from IC-751A below. RTL-SDR has a wider bandwidth, and less splatter at 2200 kHz when the strong signal came in.
RTL-SDR (top) vs raw audio from IC-751A below. RTL-SDR has a wider bandwidth, and less splatter at 2200 kHz when the strong signal came in.

Finally, in his third post he shows some more benefits of using the RTL-SDR as a panadapter, including rapid SSB tuning, RFI identification and signatures, helping work a pile up, monitor SSB net while working PSK on the parent radio, monitor the JT65 & JT9 band while working PSK – or vise versa and finally leave the radios on and monitor PSK, RTTY, JT65 & JT9 traffic for PSK Reporter.

New Posts From RTLSDR4Everyone: Avoiding RTL-SDR Ripoffs, ADS-B Antenna Reviews, Travel Kits and Direct Sampling vs Upconverter vs SDRPlay

Akos from the rtlsdr4everyone blog has been busy uploading new posts over the past few days. His first post is part three in a series that discusses how to avoid ripoffs when buying RTL-SDR dongles. The RTL-SDR market has recently become quite saturated, and it is now easy to purchase something that most experienced users would consider a ripoff. His post shows some examples of what he considers to be poor value choices available on eBay.

An example of a ripoff price.
An example of a ripoff price.

His second post discusses his methodology for testing dongles on their ADS-B performance. The second post then leads into the third post in which he compares four antennas on ADS-B reception. He compares two telescopic whip antennas, one set to 1/2 wave length, and the other set to 1/4 wave, a NooElec 5dBi whip antenna, and the FlightAware ADS-B antenna. His results show that the FlightAware antenna was the best performer, followed by the 1/2 wave telescopic whip, then the NooElec 5dBi whip and finally the 1/4 wave telescopic whip. The fourth post continues the ADS-B topic, and he reviews the NooElec 5dBi ADS-B antenna. Although the performance is not as good as the FlightAware antenna he mentions that it is much smaller and great for portable use. If  you are interested, we have also a review of the FlightAware antenna, and we also found its performance to be excellent.

The four ADS-B antennas tested in Akos' review.
The four ADS-B antennas tested in Akos’ review.

In his fifth post Akos shows what his RTL-SDR travel kit consists of. In this post he recommends both our RTL-SDR V3 dongle as well as the NooElec SMArt. For a portable computer, he takes along a Raspberry Pi 3 and a 20,000 mAh battery bank with solar charger. (Though we’d be interested to hear from Akos how long it takes for that small solar panel to charge the battery bank, probably takes days to charge?) For antennas he prefers to take along our large 1.5m telescopic antenna, the NooElec 5dBi ADS-B antenna, a medium telescopic antenna and a Nagoya knock-off telescopic antenna.

Akos' Mobile ADS-B Station.
Akos’ Mobile ADS-B Station.

Finally in the sixth post he shows a video that compares the differences between a generic dongle modded with direct sampling (without any impedance matching circuitry), an RTL-SDR dongle with ham-it-up upconverter and an SDRplay. Unsurprisingly the upconverter and SDRplay performs best.

Direct sampling vs upconverter vs SDRPlay on shortwave broadcast stations - 16 mins

As a bonus, Akos also has done an interesting stress test on the metal case of our RTL-SDR dongles, where he runs it over with a bus to see if it will survive. The case is mangled afterwards, but the dongle and functionality survives!

Dotcom dongle meets a bus

Working towards an FPGA DSP Implementation with LabVIEW for the RTL-SDR

Back in August we posted how Albert Lederer had created a RTL-SDR interface for the LabVIEW visual programming language which could be run on a host PC. LabVIEW is a visual programming language which is used commonly by engineers and scientists to quickly build applications for things like product testing, system monitoring, instrument control etc.

In his latest post/tutorial uploaded a few days ago he shows how to run the RTL-SDR RF acquisition on a myRIO, which is a development processing board that can run Linux and has an on board FPGA. LabVIEW can then be used to control the RTL-SDR from the host PC.

The whole point of running the RTL-SDR on the myRIO is to eventually make use of the on board FPGA. In future posts he hopes to show us how to use the on board FPGA to offload digital signal processing (DSP) tasks,  which would significantly speed up applications.

Data flow for offloading RTL-SDR DSP tasks onto the FPGA
Data flow for offloading RTL-SDR DSP tasks onto the FPGA

New ThumbNet RTL-SDR Receiver Released: F-Connector, TCXO, External DC Power, No Switch-Mode Power

ThumbSat is a company that aims to help experimenters design and launch experiments on their mini satellites (10x smaller than a regular cubesat with most of the same functionality) into orbit. They write that for about $20k they will fully design a satellite based experiment and launch it into orbit – all you need to do is provide the orbital experiment that you would like done.

To aide with the reception, they also have the ThumbNet project which aims to setup a network of satellite receivers around the world. They do this by providing school students around the world with low cost satellite receivers. The satellite receivers consist of modified/upgraded RTL-SDR dongles and satellite antennas. 

Today the ThumbNet project announced the latest iteration of their RTL-SDR dongle, called the ThumbNet N3 SDR Receiver. This receiver has some interesting design changes when compared to any other dongle that we’ve seen so far. The biggest change appears to be that this dongle uses an external power port for power. They also replaced the 1.2V switching regulator with a 1.2V linear regulator for lower noise operation. This is useful because switching regulators can cause noise, whilst linear regulators are much cleaner. However, using a linear regulator increases the power consumption significantly, and the new dongle draws 450mA of current (vs 250-280 mA on standard or our V3 dongles), meaning that some USB ports may be unable to power the device unless the external power supply port is used.

The other interesting change is that they have changed the PCB form factor, and it can now fit into a common 1455 aluminum case. Also, similarly to our V3 RTL-SDR dongles, they have decided to add a common mode choke to the USB lines, which significantly reduces USB noise. To add ESD protection they also added a static bleed resistor. Finally, like their previous receivers they continue to use a F-type RF connector and a TCXO for frequency stability.  

The price is $25.75 each plus flat rate global shipping of $4.50 and the receivers are expected to ship in mid-October. While we have not yet tested this model, it looks to be like a good receiver for those who need very low noise, or external power options.

They write:

The next Generation, ThumbNet N3 is designed from the ground up to be as simple to use as older generation dongles, but with powerful hardware features for advanced hobbyists and experimenters.

We removed all of the excess components that were sources of noise or interference in other dongles, and optimized the circuit for simplicity, sensitivity and selectability. Then we added a port to use a cable with the extremely common mini-USB connection so that the N3 is less prone to noise from the host computer than a traditional dongle. Finally, the use of standard Surface Mount 0603 or larger components makes it simple for testing or modification.

We built them for our own use, then decided to offer them to everyone.

A quick list of the features of the N3:

– Full backward compatibility with existing RTL-SDR dongles and software
– High stability TCXO (+/-0.5ppm) (ensuring rock-solid stability from start-up and over a wide range of temperatures)
– Standard R820T2 + RTL2832U (plus 24C02 EEPROM) chipset
– Improved/enhanced decoupling. (Common-mode choke on USB port)
– Low-noise, linear only power regulation (separate 1.2v and 3.3v regulators)
– External DC (+5v, 450mA) supply connector
– Mini-USB connection (allows easy separation of the RF unit from the noisy PC)
– F type RF connector (very common and compatible with existing ThumbNet tracking stations)
– Large (6x4cm) contiguous ground-plane (for better thermal dissipation)
– Static drain-away resistor on the RF input (1K to ground)
– All unnecessary parts (IR receiver, high-current LED etc.) eliminated to reduce parts count and noise
– Circuit board can be mounted into a common 1455 case

Ideal for experimentation:

– Can be connected to an external power supply for very clean power
– All of the important tracks are visible on the top side of the board for easy access
– All of the RF parts are on the top of the board (only regulators and decouplers on the back)
– Logical, simple layout using 0603 (or larger) SMT parts
– IF port break in connector (between front end and IF/USB chip) provided

While not required for operation, the N3 receiver is designed to be able to utilize a clean source of power from an external 5v power supply, instead of using the noisy power line coming from the computer’s USB port. This gives a tremendous advantage to the purist or experimenter who wants to utilize power from the N3 to power any external experiments. (When the external power supply is active, no power is drawn from the USB port to power the N3.)

PLEASE NOTE: The N3 draws approximately 450mA of current and care should be taken, even when using a powered USB hub, as it could possibly exceed the current limit of the USB port.

The ThumbNet N3
The ThumbNet N3
The ThumbNet N3 inside its optional 1455 aluminum enclosure.
The ThumbNet N3 inside its optional 1455 aluminum enclosure.