Tagged: rtl2832

RSGB Talk – The Farnham WebSDR: DC to Microwaves on your Smartphone

Over on YouTube the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) has uploaded a talk by Noel Matthews (G8GTZ) titled "The Farnham WebSDR: DC to Microwaves on your smartphone". The Farnham WebSDR runs 8 (soon to be 10) RTL-SDR dongles in order to cover multiple bands from DC to 2 GHz.

If you're interested in their talks, the RSGB also recently uploaded several other amateur radio related talks from their 2018 convention to their YouTube channel.

This presentation gives an overview of the Farnham WebSDR (http://farnham-sdr.com/) which currently covers the LF bands through to 10GHz. The presentation describes the system architecture and antennas currently used on each band and how the team has used RTL dongle receivers, available for under £10, to give good RF performance on all bands from DC to 10GHz. There is a demonstration of the SDR in use on both PC and smartphone.

RSGB 2018 Convention lecture - The Farnham WebSDR: DC to Microwaves on your smartphone

RTLion: The Multipurpose RTL-SDR Framework

Redditor [K3PWN] has recently released his project called “RTLion”. RTLion is a software framework for RTL-SDR dongles that currently supports various features such as a power spectrum plot and frequency scanning. The software can run on a Raspberry Pi 3 and all features are intended to be accessed via an easy to use web browser interface, or via an Android app. The software can also be run with Docker, making it useful for IoT applications.

RTLion project can be described as a framework due to the implementation of various features other than the frequency scanner. The common structure of the project is appropriate for adding new features too. RTLion Framework has a Flask–SocketIO based Web interface which houses it’s features there. Web interface preferred to the command line interface for facilitating the usage and supporting remote operations. Matplotlib used for creating graphs, more specifically pylabpsd(Power Spectral Density) method mostly used for converting the complex samples (stored in a numpy array) to FFT graphs.

Main purpose of the RTLion Framework is creating a framework for RTL2832 based DVB-T receivers and supporting various features such as spectral density visualizing and frequency scanning remotely. These features are provided on the Web interface and accessible via the RTLion server or the RTLion Android App for RTL-SDR & IoT applications.

RTLion - IoT RTL-SDR

All of his code is open source and available on Github. Currently he’s looking for feedback on improving the framework and we are interested to see where this project may lead in the future.

SignalsEverywhere Podcast: Is Software Defined Radio Illegal?

Corrosive from the SignalsEverywhere YouTube channel has released a new episode of his podcast, this time discussing the topic "Is Software Defined Radio Illegal?". Recently we posted about the unfortunate arrest of a UN investigator in Tunisia. Reports from news agencies seem to indicate that a major factor in his arrest was his use of an RTL-SDR dongle for monitoring air traffic as part of his investigation on Libya arms embargo violations. Although it is suspected that other political motivations are at play.

In his podcast Corrosive tries to open a discussion on whether software defined radio (SDR) is illegal, since SDR receivers have the possibility to be able to receive, demodulate and decode almost any signal. He first focuses on mostly American FCC laws regarding scanners, but similar laws are likely to be in place throughout most of the western world. Later in the podcast he discusses transmit capable SDRs and how these are more likely to come to the attention of politicians.

Decoding EMWIN Weather Information VHF Rebroadcasts with an RTL-SDR

EMWIN is an acronym for Emergency Managers Weather Information Network, and is a service for emergency managers that provides weather forecasts, warnings, graphics and other information in real time. EMWIN is broadcast from geostationary NOAA GOES satellites, and if you have a GOES SDR receiver setup it is possible to receive and decode EMWIN data.

However, if you don't want to set up a GOES receiver, KD9IXX writes on his blog how he investigated EMWIN and found that 24/7 dedicated EMWIN VHF repeaters are common around the US. Having found an EMWIN repeater in his area at 163.37 MHz he used the TrueTTY decoder and was able to successfully decode the 1200 baud 8-bit ASCII encoded signal and receive weather text information. He notes that VHF EMWIN is an excellent source of non-internet based weather data that could be useful to anyone requiring weather data in emergency circumstances.

EMWIN VHF Repeater Decoded with TrueTTY
EMWIN VHF Repeater Decoded with TrueTTY

Creating a DAB+ Radio Station with a LimeSDR

Thank you to Godrey L for submitting his article/tutorial that shows us how to broadcast a DAB/DAB+ radio station using a LimeSDR and ODR-mmbTools. The LimeSDR Mini is a US$159 12-bit TX/RX capable SDR that can tune between 10 MHz – 3.5 GHz, with a maximum bandwidth of up to 30.72 MHz. ODR-mmbTools is an open source DAB transmission chain which is compatible with USRP and LimeSDR SDRs.

DAB stands for Digital Audio Broadcast and is a digital broadcast radio signal that is available in many countries outside of the USA. The digital signal encodes several radio stations, and it is considered a modern alternative/replacement for standard analog broadcast FM.

The tutorial is split into four parts. The first part simply explains what SDRs are and in particular discusses the LimeSDR and how it can be used with ODR-mmbTools. Part two discusses what hardware you need, and explains what each component of the ODR-mmbTools software does. Part three gets into the actual setup of the software on Linux. Part four finishes with actually transmitting the signal and decoding it with an RTL-SDR and the Welle.io DAB decoder.

The end result is a DAB radio station with three stations being broadcast.

LimeSDR Transmitting 3 DAB stations, and receiving it with an RTL-SDR and Welle.io.
LimeSDR Transmitting 3 DAB stations, and receiving it with an RTL-SDR and Welle.io.

Receiving Es’Hail-2 DVB-S2 on Ubuntu With LeanDVB

Yesterday we posted about a real time Windows demodulator for receiving amateur TV DVB-S/S2 on Es'Hail-2/QO-100. Recently another YouTube user "M Khanfar" also submitted a video tutorial showing how to decode Es'Hail-2 DVB-S2 on Ubuntu with an RTL-SDR and the LeanDVB decoder.

Khanfar notes that although the LeanDVB decoding method is not real time, his tests show that the LeanDVB method is able to work with a much lower SNR signal compared to the Windows demodulator. The process is to simply capture an IQ file with GQRX, then run LeanDVB on the command line with the recorded IQ file. It will create a TS file that can be played in any media player.

His receiving setup consists of an RTL-SDR, 100cm dish, modified LNB and a home made bias tee that can switch his LNB between horizontal and vertical polarization.

QO-100 DVB-S2 Decoding

A Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR Based Boombox

Thank you to Walter P. for writing in and sharing with us his conversion of an old analog boombox into a fully functional wideband software defined radio based on an RTL-SDR dongle and upconverter.

Walters Ghettoblaster RTL-SDR Radio
Walters Boombox RTL-SDR Radio

Inside the boombox Walter stripped away the analog circuitry and replaced it with a new LCD screen, Raspberry Pi, RTL-SDR, upconverter and an audio amplifier. Four rotary switches on top of the radio are used to control the frequency, demod mode and volume, and there is also a numerical keypad which can be used to enter the frequency directly. 5V and HF antenna connectors have been added to the side, as well as an upconverter enable switch on top. Walter also added a Spyserver mode to the software, which allows you to connect to the radio over WiFi with SDR#, although he notes that using the integrated Pi WiFi module seems to introduce noise on the speakers.

If you're interested in building a similar device, Walter has provided the full Python code and installation instructions for his build.

Edit 09 May 19: It was pointed out that the word "ghettoblaster" could be considered offensive in some cultures. We have changed the word in our article to "boombox" and apologize for any unintended offence.

RaspBRadio - A Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR Based Boombox

Windows Realtime DVB-S Demodulator for Es’Hail-2 & Amateur TV Available

Thank you to Happysat for writing in and noting that over on the Amsat-DL forums user Markro92 has uploaded a realtime Windows DVB-S demodulator with GUI. The demodulator works with the RTL-SDR, HackRF, SDRplay and PlutoSDR support is due to be added soon. Happysat notes the following: 

It can demodulate DVB-S and S2 signals with very low symbolrate on Es Hail-2 geosat on 25,9 East from the Wideband Transponder. So you do not need a modified lnb or modified satelitte stb :) Of course you can also see the amateur tv streams which people uplink theirself.

To see if there is any stream active one can visit the wideband WebSDR and above the stream the info is displayed which parameters in use (symbol rate and mode dvbs(2)) so you can adjust in the Demodulator program. Stream + Chat: https://eshail.batc.org.uk/wb/ .

The latest version of the software will always be always available at http://v.1337team.tk/dvb-s_gui_amsat.zip.

Happysat Decoding a DVB-S2 stream from Es-Hail2 with an RTL-SDR V3.
Happysat Decoding a DVB-S2 stream from Es-Hail2 with an RTL-SDR V3.