The script is a Windows batch file that downloads FIRMS data from the internet every 12 hours, then converts that data into a format that can be processed by goestools. Once converted the resulting JSON file is uploaded to the Raspberry Pi running goestools. A custom goestool process is then used to layer the data onto the received images.
The result is accurate red polygons on the satellite image in areas where fires have been recorded. With this data visualized it is easy to see where smoke seen on the satellite images is coming from. For example, the image below shows the location of wildfires in the Western USA and the resulting smoke trailing across the continent.
Carl has also tested the fire data layer with GK-2A and Himawari-8 and notes that it works well with images from those satellites as well.
Fires data in Western USA layered on top of received GOES satellite images.
Thankyou to M.Khanfar for submitting news about his latest project which involves running an RTL-SDR dongle on a QNAP NAS (network attached storage). Running a dongle on a NAS machine might be useful if you need to record large amounts of IQ data, or need fast network speeds. Khanfar writes:
In this video , I will show you step by step how to make QNAP NAS Recognize and Running SDR Dongle and connected directly via USB and then launching rtl-sdr tools by installing dependencies tool to run like rtl_tcp.
The tools we need to install its calling QPKG. QNap Nas has it's own operating system called QTS, and NAS it mean ( Network Attached storage ) and I'm successfully implementing dependencies and make QNAP Recognize my SDR Dongle Stand alone.
The QPKG it's like. exe in windows, but its special extensions for qnap operating system QTS .
The two qpkg (software) we will install them from third party delevopper for qnap , not from official qnap store, and I will install them inside my QNAP and you will see step by step how it's easy to turn your QNAP NAS to SDR Server without any pc needed !
And the advantage is the qnap is stand alone, and it has a high speed gigabit LAN speed, and it have SSL certificate that I buy it from qnap store for secure connection from outside and it has like fix up adrress it's called qnap Id.
So I can easy running my sdr# from my work directly TCP to my SDR dongle ! using qnap Id with plus port number for TCP like 1234.
If you have +3mbps internet speed for uploading in your home, you can easy access and making connection to rtl_tcp from different country, and secured with ssl and qnap I'd ! I will post in future video for WAN Access secure and fast to rtl_tcp from outside.
The two QPKG we need :
1-Entware-3x-std: its install many dependencies packages to use in terminal like OPKG tool that we need it to install rtl-sdr package! . 2-Gotty : its terminal emulator I use it inside qnap to install commands. follow my video for understanding!
My qnap model in this video: QNAP TS-228
The command I use after install all dependencies: opkg install git rtl-sdr
SDR++ is an open source, cross platform, C++ based GUI general receiver program for various SDRs including the RTL-SDR. Since it's alpha release in mid 2020, it has undergone huge amount of development, and is quickly becoming the main program of choice for many users due to it's efficiency, cross platform and multi-SDR hardware support and increasing feature set. And with an easy GUI very similar to that of SDR#, it's easy for most users to learn.
Recently version 1.0.0 of the SDR++ software has recently been released. This is the first non-beta stable version, so represents a major milestone in development. Over on Reddit programmer u/xX_WhatsTheGeek_Xx summarizes the latest developments.
After over a year of work, I'm proud to released version 1.0.0 of SDR++!
For those who don't know, SDR++ is a crossplatform (Windows, Linux, MacOS, BSD) and open-source (https://github.com/AlexandreRouma/SDRPlusPlus/releases) general purpose receiver software meant to be simple and easy to use. It has advances features like multi-vfo and uses a fully custom DSP making it very efficient.
Here are the following additions compared to the last version:
Support for the SpyServer protocol
Support for all SDRplay devices
Support for all BladeRF devices
Support for all LimeSDR devices
Optional IQ correction
Optional Decimation
Broadcast FM Stereo
Frequency manager to create lists of frequency and optionally display them directly on the FFT/Waterfall
Network sink to stream the audio output via TCP or UDP
Options to set the FFT framerate, FFT size and FFT window.
Theming with Dark and Light themes supplied by default
RigCTL server module to control SDR++ from, for example, gpredict.
A bunch of keyboard shortcuts (see wiki on the github page)
SNR meter
More info when hovering a VFO
Colored VFOs to easily identify which is which at a glance
Meteor M2 demodulator compatible with LRPTOfflineDecoder and Satdump
Ability to resize VFOs by directly dragging the sides on the FFT and waterfall
Module manager to easily add or remove any module on the fly without having to restart or edit the config manually
File dialogs to select directories in the recorder or files in the file source (instead of having to type in the path)
Ability to disable modules that support it (Radio and Meteor M2 demodulator) with one click (to save CPU power or just if they're not needed)
Lots of performance improvements
Ludicrous amounts of bugfix :)
I'd like to thank the many contributors, patrons and companies (SDRplay, Airspy, Nuand, LimeMicro) who helped make this project possible!
If you have any issue with the software, please open a github issue or contact me directly on the SDR++ discord (see readme on github)
I hope this software comes in useful to at least some of you ;)
We also wanted to highlight the fact that SDR++ runs smoothly with about 50% CPU usage on a Raspberry Pi 4 with an RTL-SDR.
Also according to @cemaxecuter who created DragonOS, if rtaudio is installed on Linux , then an easy to use virtual audio sink becomes usable from SDR++, allowing audio to be easily passed to other programs such as WSJT-X just like on Windows.
A ready to use zip file for Windows is available on the GitHub Releases page, as well as amd64 .deb and .pkg install files for Ubuntu, Debian and MacOS systems. For other systems the compilation instructions are available on the readme or Git main page.
Over on YouTube the BSides Halifax channel has uploaded a recent talk given by Security Engineer Grant Colgan titled "Hacking RF Breaking what we can't see". In the talk Grant first shows the various bits of wireless devices that he tests, as well as the receiver equipment that he uses which includes a HackRF and RTL-SDR dongles. He goes on to show various live demos.
An often overlooked aspect of security is what happens when information is moving magically from one device to another with no wires. We know this as (usually) Wifi or Bluetooth and any attacks are usually based on these technologies. However when you widen the scope to RF wireless communication, A lot more tools become available. In this talk I will be talking about the attack and doing live demos.
Back in September 2020 we posted about the release of an X-Band decoder for the Elektro-L2 and Elektro-L3 Russian geostationary satellites. These satellites are receivable from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, South America and Australia. Unlike the HRIT and LRIT L-band transmissions from other geosynchronous satellites like GOES and GK-2A, the X-band Elektro signal is quite difficult to receive, requiring a large dish and more expensive hardware.
However we've recently seen exciting news on Twitter that a new L-band LRIT transmission has been activated on Elektro-L3. Like the Korean GK-2A satellite, this L-band LRIT transmission at 1691 MHz should be much easier to receive requiring only a WiFi dish, SAWBird GOES LNA and an RTL-SDR. We haven't yet confirmed if like GK-2A, the smaller 600 x 400 mm WiFi dish is sufficient, or if Elektro requires the larger 600 x 1000 mm dish size. (See our GOES satellite and GK-2A tutorial for information about the hardware being discussed in this paragraph.)
We note that the Elektro-L3 signal appears to be in testing, and the transmission could be turned on and off, or even turned off permanently. The transmission schedule is also not yet clear although in this recent tweet @HRPTEgor has mapped out some current transmission times for Eletro-L3.
It is hoped that LRIT will also eventually be activated on Elektro-L2, and perhaps even HRIT will be activated too. It is also exciting that more Elektro-L satellites are planned to be launched from 2022 onwards and we expect those to have hopefully LRIT and HRIT transmissions as well. To add further excitement, it is hoped that the L3 LRIT activation means that a LRIT or HRIT signal will be activated on the high elliptical orbit (HEO) northern hemisphere Arctic monitoring ARKTIKA-M1 satellite launched in Feb 2021, as this satellite is derived from the Elektro-L design.
The LRIT activation of Elektro-L3 hopefully means that Europeans should finally have access to a geostationary weather satellite that can be easily received with modest low cost hardware. The current coverage map from Orbitron of the two Elektro satellites is shown below (note that Elektro-L2 LRIT does not appear to have been activated yet).
Elektro-L2 and Elektro-L3 Coverage (Currently only Elektro-L3 LRIT transmissions have been discovered)
Over on Twitter @aang254 has noted that he has already updated his satdump software, adding support for Elektro LRIT decoding, and adding support for all of the available channels and for color. Satdump is available as a binary for Windows, and on Linux can be built from source. Experimentally, Satdump can also be built and run on Android.
The Tweet from @aang254 provides a nice sample image of what can be received.
I turns out ELEKTRO-L LRIT contains all 3 Visible channels and apparently 2 IR channels.
Over on YouTube we've seen a good video from channel Ham Radio DX where presenter Hayden shows how to use an RTL-SDR to receive slow scan television (SSTV) images from the International Space Station (ISS). Often the ISS will transmit SSTV images down to earth on the VHF 2 meter bands as part of an event. With an RTL-SDR and simple antenna it's possible to receive those images.
In the video Hayden discusses the SSTV transmission, and demonstrates some SSTV decoding happening in real time as the ISS passes over his location. If you're looking to get started in ISS SSTV reception, this is a good video to get an idea of what's involved. He finishes the video with some useful tips for reception.
Using a RTL SDR Dongle to receive pictures from the ISS! | Software Defined Radio
The company ebcTech who makes AIS Share for Android has recently come out with a new app which is an Android App version of Dump1090. Dump1090 is a popular command line based ADS-B decoder for RTL-SDR dongles which allows you to receive and plot the locations of nearby aircraft on a map.
The app directly accesses the RTL-SDR via a USB OTG connection and provides a list of aircraft with planespotters.net image lookup, and a Google map display. The app is free however there is a message limit on received aircraft which can be unlocked via a low cost in-app purchase.
The author also wrote in and wanted to make a note about a special feature "In the app you can add Airport layers – This consist now 4480 Airports – most of them with corresponding homepage address / or Wikipedia link."
Thank you to Antonio from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Department of Photonic Technology and Bioengineering for writing in and sharing with us his teams latest research titled "Dual-Comb Spectrometer Based on Gain-Switched Semiconductor Lasers and a Low-Cost Software-Defined Radio". The research involves the use of an RTL-SDR Blog V3 dongle in place of an expensive digital oscilloscope for measuring the output of a dual-comb spectrometer. The abstract of the paper reads as follows:
Dual-comb spectroscopy has become a topic of growing interest in recent years due to the advantages it offers in terms of frequency resolution, accuracy, acquisition speed, and signal-to-noise ratio, with respect to other existing spectroscopic techniques. In addition, its characteristic of mapping the optical frequencies into radio-frequency ranges opens up the possibility of using non-demanding digitizers.
In this paper, we show that a low-cost software defined radio platform can be used as a receiver to obtain such signals accurately using a dual-comb spectrometer based on gain-switched semiconductor lasers.
We compare its performance with that of a real-time digital oscilloscope, finding similar results for both digitizers. We measure an absorption line of a H13C14N cell and obtain that for an integration time of 1 s, the deviation obtained between the experimental data and the Voigt profile fitted to these data is around 0.97% using the low-cost digitizer while it is around 0.84% when using the high-end digitizer.
The use of both technologies, semiconductor lasers and low-cost software defined radio platforms, can pave the way towards the development of cost-efficient dual-comb spectrometers.
