The TAPR/ARRL Digital Communications Conference (DCC) was held virtually during September 17 - 18 2021 and the live streamed talks are now available on YouTube. DCC is a yearly conference with many SDR and RF related talks, with a focus on ham radio science.
The talks include various updates on the development of the TangerineSDR (an SDR designed for citizen science experimentation), talks on the development of a magnetometer board for citizen science, as various other talks regarding ham radio and ham radio science experiments.
The two days of talks are all lumped into the two videos below, and a list of all the talks presented can be found on the TAPR schedule website.
Over on the SWLing.com blog guest poster Dan Robinson has posted an article comparing the Russian made original "Malahit" DSP-2 (~$200) vs the Chinese clone who have upped the version number to DSP-3, but will be referred to as the "HFDY V3" (~$180). The original Malahit DSP-2 from "Malahiteam" is a portable SDR with built in speaker and touchscreen. It has a frequency range spanning between 50 kHz to 50 MHz, 50 MHz to 250 MHz and 400 MHz to 2 GHz.
There are several clones out there, but Dan notes that the Chinese "HFDY V3" version appears to be superior in terms of build quality with its high quality metal construction, high quality knobs, two antenna jacks for AM and FM, good internal shielding, and front firing speaker with beautiful gold grill. These are all improvements over the Russian made version, however it's important to note that the Chinese clone version comes with older firmware that must be carefully updated first, in order to obtain the same features as the original DSP-2.
Overall in terms of performance, after the firmware upgrade, Dan finds no difference in performance between the two. Dan goes on to mention that both the clone and original suffer from grounding problems and sensitivity to touch especially with shortwave.
Finally he notes how Malahiteam are planning a new higher end more expensive product which will include an optional add-on for enabling reception up to 6 GHz. The estimated cost of the new version will be $480 with the 6 GHz add-on, and $42o without.
Last week SDRplay released version 1.41 of their SDRUno software platform. SDRuno is the official software for the SDRplay line of low cost software defined radio devices. The main new feature is the addition of the scheduler facility which allows users to easily schedule recordings. This is great if for example you wish to automatically record a shortwave programs playing overnight.
SDRuno V1.41 was fully released today. It includes the much requested full scheduler facility which allows you to set up numerous recording events for your RSP. As well as providing all the expected calendar options (time of day, date, start and stop times, repeating options and so on), you can also set the ‘profile’ for each recording – this allows you to pre-set frequencies, bandwidths, demodulator options (AM/FM/USB/LSB etc.), choice of filters and antenna port selection. Additionally you can choose the settings for connectivity to other third party software or the running of a specific plugin.
Introduction to SDRuno 1 41 - Scheduler & Profiles (VID597)
The new version also includes a finalized version of their ADS-B aircraft tracking plugin. Last month TechMinds tested the ADS-B plugin beta, noting that it worked well, but there were bugs with the built in mapping feature. In the official tutorial video the ADS-B plugin is demonstrated and shows that the mapping problem is fixed.
The PatronX Titus II SDR is something we've been posting about several times since 2016, but in the end it was never released and assumed to be vaporware. However, we found that the website for the Titus II SDR was updated only a few weeks ago, and pricing details have been added advertising $120 and $150 for two versions of the product. But on the new website there is no store, just an email link to contact sales for ordering information. We contacted that email two weeks ago for more information but have not received a reply back yet.
The PantronX Titus II was advertised to be a portable Android tablet based SDR that would feature a 100 kHz - 2 GHz tuning range, and software that focuses on HF digital DRM decoding, as well as DAB on VHF. Computer rendered images show the tablet housed in a portable carry enclosure with two speakers. Their new website writes:
The design of rTablet / rTab defined radio receiver started in 2014. It soon became evident that electronic products available on the market could not be modified to incorporate the advanced features requested by potential buyers. This initiated the process of the innovative design of the Titus SDR (Software Defined Radio) unit. The engineering team started with a general purpose computer unit and embedding it in a broadband radio receiver module.
All types of applications, including RF software, could be installed. For example, DRM capabilities could be added as DRM is an open source. Dream Linux app was converted to run under Android mobile operating system.
The Titus rTablet / rTab being introduced to the market, is a low cost, high performance platform with many RF and PC factory installed applications.
Key feature of rTablet / rTab is the compatibility with analog (SW, AM, FM) and digital standards (DRM, DRM+, DAB, DAB+, HD). Consequently the market of rTablet / rTab is global.
The updated website with pricing and an ordering email makes us think that it might be finally on the way, but the lack of email reply is concerning. If anyone has any further information about the rTab/Titus II please be sure to share with us in the comments!
HamSCI is an organization dedicated citizen radio science and specifically the "publicity and promotion of projects that advance scientific research and understanding through amateur radio activities". Back in March they held their HamSCI 2021 workshop online, and the videos from presentations and posters are now all available on the Ham Radio 2.0 YouTube channel.
Most of he presentation videos were released back in June, but the poster talks were just released in the past few days. Many of the projects mentioned in the talks involve the use of software defined radios.
Over on YouTube use Scelly has uploaded a video showing how he has used an RTL-SDR dongle and the TVSharp SDR# plugin to decode video from the RF output of an old VCR (videocassette recorder). VCR players were designed to output the same PAL or NTSC signal that old analog TV transmissions used, and the RF output of the VCR was connected directly to the TV's antenna input.
The TVSharp plugin for SDR# can be used to decode these signals, however as the bandwidth of PAL/NTSC signals is much larger than the 2.4 MHz provided by the RTL-SDR, only a black and white image can be received. Scelly writes:
RF Output from VCR connected directly to input of my RTL-SDR. The RF output is tuned to channel 22 (487.25 MHz), and as the signal is so wide, my RTL-SDR can only display the luminance data (black and white video) and audio, although not at the same time. If I had two RTL-SDRs or an SDR with a larger bandwidth, I could have both audio and video playing at the same time.
The video playing is "The Prince of Egypt" on VHS Video Cassette.
Just a reminder than GNU Radio Conference 2021 (GRCON21) will be going ahead on Sept 20 - 24 with virtual and in-person events. It is free to register for virtual attendance and you will be able to view all talks live via streaming. If you wish to attend workshops virtually, the registration fee is $50. All links for YouTube live streaming can be found on the virtual attendance page as well. Be sure to use the YouTube "set reminder" feature to be notified when the streams begin.
GNU Radio Conference (GRCon) is the annual conference for the GNU Radio project and community, and has established itself as one of the premier industry events for Software Radio. It is a week-long conference that includes high-quality technical content and valuable networking opportunities. GRCon is a venue that highlights design, implementation, and theory that has been practically applied in a useful way. GRCon attendees come from a large variety of backgrounds, including industry, academia, government, and hobbyists.
The yearly GNU Radio Conference (GRCon) is a conference all about the development of GNU Radio and projects based on GNU Radio. GNU Radio is an open source digital signal processing (DSP) toolkit which is often used in cutting edge radio applications and research to implement decoders, demodulators and various other SDR algorithms.
Over on YouTube channel TheSmokinApe has uploaded a video about using RF filters with an RTL-SDR. In the video he first explains why FM bandstop and AM high pass filters might be required when using a software defined radio in order to avoid overloading the SDR with very strong signals. He goes on to test and review our RTL-SDR Blog FM Bandstop and AM Highpass filters, by testing them on a spectrum analyzer.
