Tagged: rtl2832u

February 10, 2019

Running SDR# in a Windows Virtual Machine on Linux

Thanks to John Jackson of JRMagnetics for writing in and letting us know about his post on installing SDR# onto a Windows Virtual Machine (VM) running on Fedora Linux.

As John notes, running SDR software from within a virtual machine essentially freezes a working version of your setup in a virtual image. It's then possible to put the image on a memory stick and take your entire working software setup with you and run it on another PC. Using a fixed image then also avoids problems with OS updates breaking things, as updates can be safely turned off on the virtual machine. Any damage from viruses is localized to the virtual machine only.

During his research John found many people who have been running Linux from within a virtual machine running on Windows, but not the reverse. Originally he tried running a Windows VM from within Windows, but he experienced crashes. Only when using Linux as the base OS was his Windows VM stable.

In his setup he runs Fedora 26 as the base Linux OS (although other Linux versions should also work), and Windows 7 in the Virtual Machine. He uses Oracle VirtualBox as the virtualization software. Once Windows 7 is installed on the Virtual Machine, setting up software like SDR# is as simple as going through our quickstart guide.

SDR# Running in a Windows Virtual Machine

February 10, 2019

New SDR# Plugin Adds Support for Contour Shuttle USB Controllers

The Contour Shuttle Express and Pro V2 are USB controller accessories for PCs. They consist of a knob-like wheel with multiple buttons and they are designed as a keyboard replacement for improving the productivity of video/photo editors. However, several people have found them useful for controlling software defined radio receiver programs like SDR#.

Recently SDR# plugin developer Eddie Mac has released a new SDR# plugin that provides native support for the Shuttle devices from within SDR# itself. The plugin allows you to dynamically map the Shuttle's buttons and wheels to functions within SDR#.

Eddie also writes:

There was no wrapper available for Contours Windows SDK so I created a managed .NET wrapper around contours dll. If anyone wants to develop their own software for these devices I will happily provide them with my .NET wrapper for free as well as a demo app to instruct on its usage.

January 30, 2019

YouTube Tutorial: Software Set up for a Portable Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR Based NOAA Weather Satellite Receiver

Last year in December we posted about Matt's element14 sponsored video which showed us how to create a portable briefcase contained NOAA satellite received based on a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR dongle. The build consisted of a heavy duty briefcase, modified ATX PSU and stripped down LCD monitor panel. This build resulted in a rugged and portable receiver. The full series of videos demonstrating the briefcase, ATX PSU conversion, LCD teardown, and NOAA satellite receiver demo can be found on his YouTube Playlist.

In his latest video Matt goes over the software installation procedure for creating an automated NOAA weather satellite receiver on the Raspberry Pi. He uses gpredict for predicting the satellite passes, and the Raspberry Pi version of WXtoImg for decoding the images. The rest of the video shows how to set up the software for your particular location, and how to set up decoding automation.

How To Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a NOAA Satellite Receiver with RTL-SDR

Watch this video on YouTube

January 30, 2019

rtl_map: A Simple FFT Visualizer for RTL-SDR

Thank you to 'KeyLo99' for submitting news of the release of his new RTL-SDR based program called rtl_map. rtl_map is a currently a simple app that uses an RTL-SDR to display an FFT frequency graph. It is based on the gnuplot and fftw3 libraries.

Over on our forums KeyLo99 describes the motivation behind the project as mostly being a good reference program for people wanting to learn how to read and process IQ data from the RTL-SDR:

I'm a RTL-SDR researcher and DSP learner currently working on a project for properly figuring RTL2832 and I/Q fundamentals out. The project is about reading raw I/Q samples, processing samples and creating FFT graph from them. I tried to explain what I'm doing in detail with comment lines. I'm hoping that I will be helpful to RTL-SDR beginners with this rtl_map [C] project. Another purpose of the rtl_map project is making a frequency scanner application for signal security researches.

January 25, 2019

Running GQRX Smoothly on an Intel Compute Stick with a Custom Linux Kernel

Thank you to M Khanfar for submitting news about his custom Linux kernel which allows an RTL-SDR and GQRX to run smoothly and with sound on an Intel Compute Stick. The Intel Compute Stick is a full dongle based computer the size of a pack of gum with pricing that starts from US$120. It has a Quad Core Atom Processor, 2GB RAM, 32 GB of built in storage and an HDMI out port. By default the stick comes with Windows 10 installed, but M Khanfar notes that it is very sluggish.

Instead of the sluggish Windows 10 OS, M Khanfar decided that he wanted to run Ubuntu Linux instead. However he found that the standard Ubuntu image did not have support for audio over HDMI or WiFi on the Compute stick. So he built his own custom kernel with some patches to fix this issue. With the issue fixed, GQRX with an RTL-SDR now runs smoothly with full audio support, and rtl_tcp can also be run over WiFi.

M Khanfar has uploaded the patched ISO to his Google Drive here.

Update 29 January 2019: M Khanfar has updated us and noted that CubicSDR now works on the custom kernel too, and he has provided full installation instructions here. A video showing it in action can be seen on YouTube.

GQRX under Custom Kernel-Intel Computer Stick

Watch this video on YouTube

January 25, 2019

Video Tutorial: Using Universal Radio Hacker, an RTL-SDR and a Microcontroller to Clone 433 MHz Remotes

Over on YouTube user hubmartin has uploaded a video showing how to use an RTL-SDR and the Universal Radio Hacker (URH) software to reverse engineer and clone a 433 MHz remote control. URH is used to extract the signal timing and modulation characteristics as well as the binary/hex code.

Then in order to clone the signal hubmartin uses a cheap IoT microcontroller with button and 433 MHz transmitter attachments. Some C code is then used to program the microcontroller and 433 MHz transmitter with the extracted signal information and to transmit on a press of the button. In his example hubmartin uses his cloned dongle to control a wireless power plug and a motorized projector screen.

Universal Radio Hacker SDR Tutorial on 433 MHz radio plugs

Watch this video on YouTube

January 24, 2019

SDR# TETRA Plugin Now Available At RTL-SDR.RU

Vasilli has recently released the SDR# TETRA plugin on his website RTL-SDR.RU (note that the site is in Russian, but can be translated with the Google Translate option in the top right of the page). Previously it was only available via ever changing forum links, so it's good to see that it has a permanent home now for the latest version. This plugin allows you to listen to TETRA digital voice via SDR#, without needing to set up any complicated GNU Radio based receivers which were necessary in the past.

The features include (note Translated from Russian):

Receiving a signal from the BS band 25kHz and modulation Pi / 4-DQPSK;
Automatic adjustment of the reception frequency;
Displays information about the BS;
Displays ISSI, GSSI subscribers in the channels (for open channels only);
Displays a service exchange network (for open channels only);
It allows you to listen to the channels in manual or automatic mode selection (only open channels);
It allows to filter and distribute the listening priority specified for groups (GSSI);
It displays a message with the location (just a short message format)

The current features not yet implemented are:

And listen to correctly display any encoded information in a network;
Display SDS type 4 (short messages);
Record audio from the channels (menu added, but does not work);

We also note that as discussed in a previous post there is a companion program for this plugin called TETRA Trunk Tracker.

January 22, 2019

More Talks from GNURadio Con 2018

Last week we posted about some videos of talks from the 2018 GNU Radio Conference which had been release on YouTube. This week a few more videos have been released and we display a small selection below. The full collection of videos can be found on their YouTube channel.

RF Ranging with LoRa Leveraging RTL-SDRs and GNU Radio

Wil Myrick discusses the use of RTL-SDRs and GNU Radio to create a low cost LoRa RF ranging prototype, to aid in the localization of IoT transmitters.

GRCon18 - RF Ranging with LoRa Leveraging RTL SDRs and GNU Radio