Airspy and YouLoop 2024 Black Friday Sale 20% OFF

Airspy is holding their annual Black Friday sale, this year offering 20% off their range of products. The sale is active at all participating resellers, which includes our own store where we have the YouLoop on sale for US$31.96 including free shipping to most countries in the world, instead of the usual US$39.95. Please note that due to EU VAT collection laws, EU customers must purchase the discounted YouLoop from our eBay or Aliexpress stores. 

The YouLoop is a low cost passive loop antenna for HF and VHF. It is based on the Möbius loop design which results in a high degree of noise cancelling. However the main drawback is that it is a non-resonant design, which means that it works best when used with ultra sensitive receivers like the Airspy HF+ Discovery. 

Some good reviews include the YouTube videos done by Frugal Radio where he reviews HF reception and VLF & LF reception with an Airspy HF+, and later tests it with an RTL-SDR Blog V3 using direct sampling. Techminds also has an excellent review on his YouTube channel. We also have a product release overview on this post from March 2020.

During the sale the price of Airspy SDRs and their upconverters are:

  • Airspy R2: $160.00 $135.20
  • Airspy Mini: $99.00 $79.20
  • Airspy HF+ Discovery: $169.00 $135.20
  • Airspy SpyVerter: $49.00 $39.20
Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

FOSDEM 2024 Call for Participation: Software Defined Radio & Amateur Radio Devroom

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developer’s Meeting) is a yearly conference that this year will take place in Brussels, Belgium on 3 - 4 February 2024. This conference will also feature a track on FOSS-powered radio, and there will be a combined Amateur Radio and SDR Devroom.

FOSDEM have issued a call for participation and have noted that slots are still open, so please submit any proposals for talks now if you are interested in presenting. The recommended topics include:

Topics discussed in the devroom include, but are not limited to:

  • SDR frameworks and the tools that make them useful
  • New SDR-based developments in ham radio modes
  • Cellular/telecom software
  • Amateur radio operator software tooling
  • Free / Open radio hardware
  • Wireless security research
  • Entertaining wireless hacks
  • SDR & ham radio in mass and higher education
  • Satellite, spacecraft and interplanetary communication

Software-Defined Radio is the technology of enabling radio signals to be processed and generated algorithmically, typically within general purpose processors, but also within FPGAs and GPUs; Free and Open Source (FOSS) Software Radio allows these algorithms to be inspectable and improvable. With the advent of ubiquitous IoT, sky-filling satellite megaconstellations and 5G/6G as standards designed with commercial Software Radios in mind, wireless is an exploding field of interest in the FOSS realm.

Ham Radio, also known as amateur radio, is more than just a hobby orbiting the usage of radio communication – it’s a passion that merges the realms of electronics, human interaction, and communication. At its core, ham radio is about establishing connections: with people, with technology, and with the world at large. It is a free and open community effort at heart!

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

Lab401: HackRF on Windows YouTube Tutorials

Over on the Lab401 YouTube channel, 'RocketGod' has uploaded three videos that are various tutorials for the HackRF on Windows. The first video covers the basics like installing software and shows how to decode pager signals with PDW.

The second video shows how to decode police transmissions, car key fobs, use rtl_433, and how to use Universal Radio Hacker to capture and analyze signals. 

The third video is not yet released, but is due to premier on YouTube in 10 hours from the time of this post. In that video RocketGod will show how to install and use DragonOS, and how to install and use SDR Trunk which turns the HackRF into a police scanner. Finally, he will demonstrate SDR Angel and show it decoding ADS-B signals from aircraft to show you live flight tracking data.

Part 1 is embedded below, and Part 2 and Part 3 are linked here.

ROCKETGOD's HackRF One guide - part 1/3 Basics, Windows apps, setting up - LAB401

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

SDRSharp Controller Plugin: Control SDRSharp via any USB Hardware Controller

Thank you to Alan De Windt who has submitted news about the release of his latest SDR# Plugin called "SDRSharp Controller". Alan writes that this is a plugin that is "similar to the existing SDRSharp Net Remote plugin by Al Brown but which allows simpler physical controllers to be built". 

With this plugin you can create a key/value text mapping to turn any USB control device into something that can control various settings in SDR#. The controller hardware could perhaps be anything from a USB knob controller to a gamepad.

Alan also provides an example of a hardware USB knob controller that he's created which works together with the plugin. On the linked page he shows the components required to build the controller, how to wire up the circuit and provides the Arduino code.

A custom SDR# controller knob
Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

Saveitforparts: Building an L-Band Satellite Antenna out of an Umbrella

Over on his YouTube channel "saveitforparts" has uploaded a video where he uses an umbrella, pin tin and tin foil tape to create a simple dish antenna for receiving GOES, NOAA and METEOR HRPT satellites.

The full build consists of an umbrella covered in tin foil tape, a helical wire feed on a pie tin, a filtered LNA, an RTL-SDR and an Android phone running SDR++. While he did have initial success at receiving, he soon decided to swap out the helical wire feed for a PCB linear feed instead which worked much better as helical feeds can be very difficult to get right.

Through the video saveitforparts goes over the failures he had, in the end noting that it's not a great antenna, but it's something that can be used in a pinch.

We've also seen the umbrella satellite dish used a few times in the past, where here it was used for NOAA APT reception, and here for Hydrogen Line radio astronomy.

We also want to remind readers that we are currently Crowd Funding for our Discovery Dish, which will be a low cost way to get into L-band satellite reception.

Can I Get Satellite Data With An Umbrella?

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

TechMinds: One Antenna Four Receivers with an Active Distributor

Over on his TechMinds YouTube channel, Matt has uploaded a video where he reviews a US$20 active antenna distributor that he purchased on Banggood / Aliexpress. An active distributor allows you to use one antenna with multiple radios, without incurring any distribution losses, which for passive splitters are typically at least 3dB per split. It does this by using an amplifier before the splitter. This is especially useful if you have a wideband antenna like a Discone.

The product comes with a built in battery, or it can also be powered via USB-C. Unfortunately it has a rather restrictive frequency range, only covering 100 kHz to 300 MHz.

Later in the video Matt shows the internal PCB of the product, showing its battery and circuitry.

ONE ANTENNA - FOUR RECEIVERS RF ACTIVE DISTRIBUTION

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

DragonOS: Tracking ADS-B, UAT, ACARS, VDL2 with TAR1090 and a KrakenSDR

Aaron who created and maintains the DragonOS SDR Linux distribution has recently uploaded a new video where he uses a KrakenSDR to simultaneously receive and decode multiple aircraft tracking, telemetry/messaging signals including ADS-B, UAT, ACARS and VDL2.

In the video Aaron uses his WarDragon which is a Mini PC that comes preinstalled with DragonOS. It is currently available on his website for $220, or $550 including a carry case, and Airspy R2.

The video shows how to setup all the software including FlightView GUI which is a graphical user interface that allows users to manage and configure various Docker based aircraft-related services including tar1090, readsb and acarshub.

WarDragon ADS-B, UAT, ACARS, and VDL2 w/ TAR1090 + ACARS Hub (KrakenSDR, Defli optional)

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email

DragonOS: Running GNSS-SDR and Obtaining a GPS Position with an RTL-SDR and Patch Antenna

Over on his YouTube channel Aaron who created and maintains the DragonOS SDR Linux distribution, has uploaded a video demonstrating how to use the GNSS-SDR software together with an RTL-SDR and patch antenna to obtain a live GPS position.

Previously we had only seen a Windows method involving GNSS-SDRLIB and RTKNAVI working as GNSS-SDR on Linux seemed impossible to get running. However, Aaron managed to find a working RTL-SDR configuration for GNSS-SDR which made it come alive. This is great as now GNSS-SDR should be able to run on a portable single board computer like a Raspberry Pi.

The video is a tutorial that shows how to install all the required dependencies, how to compile GNSS-SDR, how to configure it for an RTL-SDR, and how to use it with our RTL-SDR Blog L-band patch antenna.

DragonOS FocalX Setup GNSS-SDR and Obtain GPS Position w/ RTLSDR (Patch Antenna, WarDragon)

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Vote
Email