Tagged: sdr-console

Video Tutorials: Setting up an RTL-SDR and HackRF with SDR-Console V3, Using the HackRF to find your Cellphone Signal and more

Over on his YouTube channel user Corrosive has uploaded a set of videos that show how to install and get started with an RTL-SDR or HackRF with SDR-Console V3.  The video series starts from the very beginning with installing the drivers via zadig, and then goes on to show how to download, install and use SDR-Console V3.

In one of his later videos Corrosive also shows how to optimally configure the settings in SDR-Console V3 and SDR# for optimal reception and viewing.

In a newer video he also shows how he uses the HackRF as a spectrum analyzer to find his cellphone signal. Regarding this video, Corrosive wrote in to us and said the following:

For a while now I’ve been trying to find the frequency of my cell phone, looking frequencies up online and trying to find an app that would tell me my current frequency. None of these things seem to work and scanning the band manually I always came up dry because I wasn’t 100% sure where I needed to look.

Further videos on his channel also show how to receive ADSB data with an RTL-SDR and Android phone, and how he repurposed a rabbit ears antenna into a V-dipole antenna for receiving Satcom pirates.

Corrosive has done a good job putting out SDR and radio related videos over the past couple of weeks so it may be a channel to subscribe to if you are interested in this type of content.

SDR-Console V3 Latest Update: Signal History & Receiver Panes

SDR-Console is a popular RTL-SDR compatible multi purpose SDR software package which is similar to programs like SDR#, HDSDR and SDRuno. Currently SDR-Console V2 is the stable version and SDR-Console V3 is in a beta state. A few days ago SDR-Console V3 Preview 6 was released. It comes with some very interesting new features including a built in Airspy server, a recording scheduler, a new feature called signal history and a new receivers pane.

Over on his blog Nils Schiffhauer (DK8OK) has been reviewing the new release of SDR-Conosle V3 and writes the following information about some of the new features:

  • “Signal History” takes the signal strength of the given bandwidth each 50 milliseconds, which can be saved in a CSV file. It is also shown in three different speeds on a display.
  • “Receivers’ Pane” shows up to six combos of spectrum/spectrogram of the complete up to 24 parallel demodulators (they additionally can be shown in the Matrix, as in former versions).

“Signal History” offers many applications, to name just three:

  • analyze fading and its structure with an unsurpassed time resolution of 50 ms
  • document fade-in and fade out
  • measure signal-to-noise ratio of signals

In addition Nils has also uploaded a very useful 19 page PDF where he writes step by step instructions and shows numerous examples of the new signal history tool.

DK8OK's SDR-Console V3 P6 Screenshot. Showing multiple receiver panes and the new signal history feature.
DK8OK’s SDR-Console V3 P6 Screenshot. Showing multiple receiver panes and the new signal history feature.
DK8OK's screenshot of the signal history toolbox.
DK8OK’s screenshot of the signal history toolbox.

SDR-Console V3 Preview Updated to Support the SDRplay RSP2

Recently Jon from the SDRplay team wrote in to let us know that SDR-Console V3 (preview version) has just been updated and it now supports the RSP2. The RSP2 is the successor to the popular RSP1 software defined radio. It has improved filtering, more input ports, improved LNA, and just overall improved performance. See our initial RSP2 review here. They write:

Many thanks to Simon Brown for updating SDR-Console V3 Preview to fully support both the RSP1 and the RSP2- you can download the software from http://sdr-radio.com/v3_preview_downloads (be sure to click on the software link under where it says ‘Downloads’ unless you want to download the software from the advertisers who support Simon’s work!)

As new YouTube demo videos of SDR-Console V3 in action become available, we will add them to the playlists on our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/SDRplayRSP

The RSP2 now supports its native SDRUno software, HDSDR through an extIO module, CubicSDR and now SDR-Console V3.

The RSP2
The RSP2

Decoding 2x AIS Channels with SDR Console, AISMon and OpenCPN

YouTube user k2nccvids has posted a video showing him decoding and plotting both AIS channels simultaneously on a Windows PC with free software. To do this he uses SDR Console and two AISMon instances. SDR Console is a general purpose SDR GUI that supports the RTL-SDR. One of it’s major advantages over other SDR software is that it can tune to multiple signals in the same swath of tuned bandwidth simultaneously and output their audio to different virtual audio cables.

k2nccvids used two AISMon instances, each one connected to a separate virtual audio cable outputting AIS audio from SDR Console. He set AISMon to output decoded UDP packets on two different ports. Then he created two UDP listeners in OpenCPN for plotting, one for each port.