Tag Archives: SDR

Projects: Software-Defined Radio with the RTL-SDR USB Stick

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The RTL2832 and antenna

The RTL2832 and antenna

Yesterday I received my latest order from Adafruit — the RTL2832 Software Defined Radio USB Stick.  This nifty little device is sold in Europe as a digital TV receiver (DVB-T) for your computer.  While not compatible with the digital TV broadcasts in the US, with some additional free software, this little guy will tune into radio signals from about 24MHz to 1850MHz.  The “software” in Software-Defined Radio refers to the fact that an application external to the receiver hardware decodes the signal however you want — AM, FM (narrow or wide), single sideband, CW, etc.  The most popular Windows application (and yes, there are Linux programs available as well – the Raspberry Pi is a popular mate for this unit) for the RTL2832 is “SDR-Sharp.”  There are some more advanced applications available that will follow trunking systems and decode some digitial systems such as DMR, D-STAR, etc.  I haven’t downloaded any of these (yet).

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Crosstown Traffic: Hackaday Hacklet #19 – Ham Radio – SDR, Foxhunt Attenuator, and Ethernet to Radio Adapter

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The folks over at Hackaday featured Ham Radio in their latest edition of the Hacklet, their weekly newsletter covering projects posted on their hackaday.io site.  The first project, titled “RTL-SDR With Upconverter and Case” features the use of an upconverter to enable the SDR dongle to pick up HF.  Pretty handy, considering the stock RTL-SDR has a low limit of about 24 MHz. I just picked up one of these SDR dongles, so I’ll have to look into getting the upconverter.

Like fox hunting?  Attach the “Ham Radio Fox Hunt Attenuator” to your HT to reduce the sensitivity of your portable as you close in on that tiny low-powered transmitter.  This one uses a couple of 1K potentiometers abd boasts a “…first of its kind variable attenautor vs multiple switches. 1-20 and 21-60 db. with a 3rd option of bypass/straight through.”  The ones I’ve used in the past have a bank of switches that switch resistors in an out, so their might be some advantage to the variable unit. Read more

Projects: RTL2832 Software Defined Radio and FM Stereo Transmitter from Adafruit

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I just purchased a few items from Adafruit including an RTL2832 Software Defined Radio USB Stick and a Stereo FM Transmitter with RDS breakout board.  Not sure what I’m going to do with the FM Transmitter but I think it will be something like the FM Transmitter that my friend Mike Yancey KM5Z made a few years ago.  The Software Defined Radio stick will probably come with me on my travels so I can sniff the airwaves while bored in my hotel room.  Lady Ada has a good tutorial for the SDR and it looks like a lot of fun — will apparently pick up signals from 24 MHz to 1.8 GHz and supports narrow and wide FM, AM, sideband, and CW.  She also has a tutorial for the FM transmitter.  I’ll make some postings to the blog when I start playing with these things.

 

(published from Hagerstown, MD)