Cheap Ham Radio SDR
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- #Ham #Radio #SDR #Police
Mike / WG5EEK gave a cool presentation on the use of SDR's. The barrier to entry is very low. You will need a SDR dongle around $30 and a PC (Mac's with up to date OS will be more challenging). The software is free and some dongles come with antennas.
Once set up you can listen to all Ham Radio frequencies, aircraft frequencies and even turn it into the cheapest police scanner you can buy. This will work on most monderen trunking police frequencies.
What is RTL-SDR?
RTL-SDR is a very cheap ~$25 USB dongle that can be used as a computer based radio scanner for receiving live radio signals in your area (no internet required). Depending on the particular model it could receive frequencies from 500 kHz up to 1.75 GHz. Most software for the RTL-SDR is also community developed, and provided free of charge.
Over the years since its discovery RTL-SDR has become extremely popular and has democratized access to the radio spectrum. Now anyone including hobbyists on a budget can access the radio spectrum. It's worth noting that this sort of SDR capability would have cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars just a few years ago. The RTL-SDR is also sometimes referred to as RTL2832U, DVB-T SDR, DVB-T dongle, RTL dongle, or the "cheap software defined radio".
What is Software Defined Radio?
Radio components such as modulators, demodulators and tuners are traditionally implemented in analogue hardware components. The advent of modern computing and analogue to digital converters allows most of these traditionally hardware based components to be implemented in software instead. Hence, the term software defined radio. This enables easy signal processing and thus cheap wide band scanner radios to be produced.
What are some RTL-SDR Radio Scanner Applications?
The RTL-SDR can be used as a wide band radio scanner. Applications include:
Use as a police radio scanner.
Listening to EMS/Ambulance/Fire communications.
Listening to aircraft traffic control conversations.
Tracking aircraft positions like a radar with ADSB decoding.
Decoding aircraft ACARS short messages.
Scanning trunking radio conversations.
Decoding unencrypted digital voice transmissions such as P25/DMR/D-STAR.
Tracking maritime boat positions like a radar with AIS decoding.
Decoding POCSAG/FLEX pager traffic.
Scanning for cordless phones and baby monitors.
Tracking and receiving meteorological agency launched weather balloon data.
Tracking your own self launched high altitude balloon for payload recovery.
Receiving wireless temperature sensors and wireless power meter sensors.
Listening to VHF amateur radio.
Decoding ham radio APRS packets.
Watching analogue broadcast TV.
Sniffing GSM signals.
Using rtl-sdr on your Android device as a portable radio scanner.
Receiving GPS signals and decoding them.
Using rtl-sdr as a spectrum analyzer.
Receiving NOAA weather satellite images.
Listening to satellites and the ISS.
Radio astronomy.
Monitoring meteor scatter.
Listening to FM radio, and decoding RDS information.
Listening to DAB broadcast radio.
Listening to and decoding HD-Radio (NRSC5).
Use rtl-sdr as a panadapter for your traditional hardware radio.
Decoding taxi mobile data terminal signals.
Use rtl-sdr as a high quality entropy source for random number generation.
Use rtl-sdr as a noise figure indicator.
Reverse engineering unknown protocols.
Triangulating the source of a signal.
Searching for RF noise sources.
Characterizing RF filters and measuring antenna SWR.
Decoding Inmarsat STD-C EGC geosynchronous satellites.
Listening to the ISS (International Space Station).
Furthermore, with an upconverter or V3 RTL-SDR dongle to receive HF signals the applications are expanded to:
Listening to amateur radio hams on SSB with LSB/USB modulation.
Decoding digital amateur radio ham communications such as CW/PSK/RTTY/SSTV.
Receiving HF weatherfax.
Receiving digital radio mondiale shortwave radio (DRM).
Listening to international shortwave radio.
Looking for RADAR signals like over the horizon (OTH) radar, and HAARP signals.
Note that not all the applications listed may be legal in your country. Please be responsible.
What is the RTL-SDR frequency range?
This is dependent on the particular tuner variant used in the dongle, and the particular implementation. Some dongles, like our RTL-SDR Blog V3 also utilize the direct sampling mode which can enable reception below 28 MHz.
Tuner Frequency range
Elonics E4000 52 - 2200 MHz with a gap from 1100 MHz to 1250 MHz (varies)
Rafael Micro R820T/2 24 - 1766 MHz (Can be improved to ~13 - 1864 MHz with experimental drivers)
Fitipower FC0013 22 - 1100 MHz
Fitipower FC0012 22 - 948.6 MHz
FCI FC2580 146 - 308 MHz and 438 - 924 MHz (gap in between)
Table Source: Osmocom
Source:www.rtl-sdr.com/
Great showing of SDR. Thank you for bringing it to US Jason 😉
You bet! Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the reference ;-)
- Airspy Team
You are welcome! Its a great product and a lot of fun to use.
Unable to download the SDR# my antivirus software blocks it as being a virus
Don't misunderstand stand my unit wasn't theirs. But I paid 40 bucks for the one I got. If one day I ever tried again I'd go to Aair Spy. Thanks for the tip. Oh, I am on win 10 but I also called the unit on my extremely stable 8.1 . I love the thing. Not a problem since I got it. Neither way it won't operate. I used to write up mainframe start up manuals for mainframes. I was paid to pay attention and be exact. I wondered if I was misunderstanding something,, who knows.
Very nice
Thanks
What are everyone's thoughts on the quality of transmit and receive using this device, vs your average base station with the same antenna configuration? I know, very general question, but let's hear some opinions?
These are receive only. For $30 it works ok. But the SDR's that are over $100 will work a lot better and have a cleaner signal, such as the SDR Play.
Your chart is old (@4:00). The HackRF has been able to go down to 1 MHz (not 30 MHz) for some time now.
Good demo of a cheap sdr. This one looks like it's best for use as a scanner. Looking at the chart of sdr devices, it looks like the sdr play would be best to receive on the ham HF bands, plus on up to 2 ghz?
I purchased a trunking scanner and discovered my local dispatch was encrypted so I sold it. I assume that his approach would have the same problem?
@@KMphotography Yes that's correct, as long as it is encrypted and not just using some form of digital audio, you cannot decrypt it.
The $30 RTL-SDR can do 500 kHz up to 1.75 GHz and HF is no problem. I've also heard great things about the SDRplay, but it does have a higher price point. Thanks for watching and the kind words!
Keith, what was the city and state you were trying to listen too?
Thanks - I must be misunderstanding something then because on the chart it appears that the low tune (start) on the RTL is 24 MHz. I'd much rather spend $30 on it than $200 on the SDRPlay!
Will the nagoya 106 antenna work with such a device? If not could you recommend a cheap one
Thanks. Also for viewing on tablets and phones, we would like to see the full screen of presentation... not the presenter while unable to see the presentation content.
Here is the presentation if you would like to view it directly:
drive.google.com/file/d/1D7YEh_Ip8iwKzL6aW00wuOfaffi0SZb9/view?usp=drivesdk
Thanks for watching and for the feedback!
Great point on viewing these videos on a smaller screen. I do make an effort to go full screen on every slide, but I won't leave it there. My thoughts are the viewer could always pause or screen capture those moments.
Thanks for sharing that Mike!
@@HamRadioTV Anytime Jason!
I worked 20 hours no joke on my 40 buck SDR and I don't get any horizontal lines or nothing. I got scammed but I could open it to see if it even has innards. Ireallyyyyy wanted to use it for low freq. what is the simplest one to install of I try again maybe spring. If u can help thank you.
This does become a deep rabbit whole. A lot of us like the Airspy software.
4:31 please reference the law that you can't decode pager (POCSAG) traffic? I'm 99.999% sure you are incorrect.
Not sure. Hit up WG5EEK on QRZ if you're looking for more info on his presentation.
11:40 Police report a criminal taking a hard right on Seratoga
Got it
Another good video @HamRadioTV. Thanks again
Thank you very much!!
Wonderful 73 de vu3wrr
Thanks You! 73 KM6FAK & WG5EEK
He said dongle. He he
😁
What is good software for Mac OS Catalina?
No idea...the newer Mac OS does not play well with this stuff.
Best software for Mac? thanks
There is none, that we are aware of. I tried to install one from the RTL-SDR site, and it did not work.
I bought this device but I wasn't able to install it on the computer 🤔😢
I'm not sure which device you purchased but this quick start guide might help you:
www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick-start-guide/