Software Defined Radio the Snubsie way! Shannon discovers how much fun a radio dongle and open source software can be. Plus, Darren meets with J0hnny Lon…
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 ultra-cheap Software Defined Radio with RTL2832 DVB-T USB stick

Download it here: http://spench.net/r/USRP_Interfaces Also: Source block for GNU Radio: http://wiki.spench.net/wiki/gr-baz#rtl_source_c http://twitter.com/sp…

50 replies
  1. balint256
    balint256 says:

    Any USB device using the Realtek RTL2832U demodulator chip, AND a
    compatible tuner (at the moment E4000, FC0013, FC0012, FC2580) should work.
    FUNcubes are good (they have an E4000) but the maximum bandwidth is only 96
    kHz (compared to 3.2 MHz on the RTL dongles). The upside is that because
    the FCD contains an audio codec as the demod, it appears as a soundcard on
    your computer (i.e. no drivers required). To be more precise, it’s a
    composite USB device, the other sub-device is an HID device…

    Reply
  2. MrJimbotz
    MrJimbotz says:

    Hi thanks for putting me right about the usb stick, i have now got the Hama
    nano from Amazon, i have it up and running in HDSDR and although all seems
    to be running, all i am getting is white noise, not even any local
    broadcast stations, in the “Hint” i am putting RTL, not sure if i have to
    tell it what Tuner to use.

    Reply
  3. hurleytom
    hurleytom says:

    Ihave a Newsky dongle. No matter what frequency I tune to there’s a peak in
    the centre of the spectrum. Any ideas what’s causing this?

    Reply
  4. Ron Overdrive
    Ron Overdrive says:

    I ordered my a week ago from Deals Extreme and can’t wait to get it. I
    wasn’t expecting a windows port so soon so this will be great when I work
    AMSATs!

    Reply
  5. Adam Alicajic
    Adam Alicajic says:

    We manage to watch HAM radio DVB-T transmission (with VLC player 🙂 on 435
    mhz but only with the bandwith of 6, 7 and 8 MHz. Editing the VLC options
    we try to watch the 2 MHz signal with 2 MHz bandwith, but without sucess.
    Any hint? Does anybody know any dvb-t sw where we can setup 2 MHz bandwith?
    (Modulation 16QAM) Thanks

    Reply
  6. spin877
    spin877 says:

    I have a USB-Dikom DVBT HD I deleted the contents of the ROM 24C02. Before
    windows detect VID-PID 1b80: d394. While now 0BDA: 2832. Could you help me
    telling me what are the first 16 bytes of EEPROM? Thank you. P. S.
    balint256 you may write a ExtIO_RTL.dll for Winrad? Ciao.

    Reply
  7. balint256
    balint256 says:

    Yes, the tuners will let you receive 70cm. You should consider using a
    bandpass filter, and perhaps a preamp, if you’re after weak signals (the
    device has a lower dynamic range since it only produces 8-bit samples).

    Reply
  8. alynn333333
    alynn333333 says:

    The tuner range tops out on most of them between 1.4 and 1.7Ghz. At the
    bottom most are in the 50Mhz range (although I just bought one with a new
    chipset that goes down to 25ish Mhz). DirecTV’s LNB is downconverting to
    2Mhz to 2145Mhz. The dish itself is a 5Ghz dish. So if there’s something in
    5ghz that will downconvert into the middle of the LNB’s range – maybe. But
    what do you want to listen to up there? It’s a very tight beam so you’d
    need to motorize the dish. [cont]

    Reply
  9. L0VEPEACEL0VEPEACE
    L0VEPEACEL0VEPEACE says:

    Gday mate, i got a RTL2832 DVB-T USB stick, plugged it into my mac osx
    (lion) and like you said my mac can’t detect the device. I downloaded wine
    ? I can’t find the plugin you are talking about ?? Please help me.. Im lost
    like usual..

    Reply
  10. MrJimbotz
    MrJimbotz says:

    Hi there i have just ordered Ezcap.TV, but i have clicked on the box and it
    shows different than yours, i have included the link, (youtube stopped the
    link) but it was Amazon.co.uk. its first box on there. Please look and tell
    me if its the same, or any other on that page that will work.

    Reply
  11. DoctorBlankenstein
    DoctorBlankenstein says:

    Have you been able to listen to any sounds from space etc? Would this work
    well plugged into an old DirectTV dish?

    Reply
  12. balint256
    balint256 says:

    Yes I’ve ported it to Windows as an ExtIO plugin for HDSDR/Winrad/WRplus,
    and to GNU Radio (appears as a block in GNU Radio Companion). I have also
    released the cross-platform source code for ‘librtl2832++’ (it’s in
    gr-baz), which is a C++ (OO) interface that abstracts control of the
    hardware/tuners. You can rip it out and use it for anything else if you
    wish – e.g. enabling use of the hardware in other Windows/Linux apps!

    Reply
  13. balint256
    balint256 says:

    This is a usability issue I will resolve in the next big release: separate
    plugins for each hardware device, instead of having them all contained
    within the one. (It was only originally supposed to be for the USRP, as you
    may have noticed!)

    Reply
  14. signalman341
    signalman341 says:

    Hi, I’ve downloaded all the software and followed the procedure given, I
    have the correct dongle 2832/e4000. A daft question maybe, using HDSDR
    software there does not seem to be any signals present. The computer
    recognises the dongle after using rtlreadlen=8192 tuner=e4k etc, what
    method do you use to tune the dongle. Using the keyboard of the PC the
    software seems to crash. balint 256 can I contact you via an email link
    please, then I can send you some screen grabs.

    Reply
  15. Andrijan M
    Andrijan M says:

    Hey Shannon. The data traffic you hear on 160 Mhz is called POCSAG and can
    be decoded using Stereomix. You can find decoders online for free. :)

    Reply
  16. Jay Mee
    Jay Mee says:

    iv had 1 of these for a while it can find bugs (wireless taps) anything
    that transmits including cb radio etc its quite good shame it dont work on
    linuxthough very disapointed in that part of it

    Reply
  17. Rich M-Smith
    Rich M-Smith says:

    I’ve had several of those cheap tv tuners die on me and just start getting
    hot.l when using for sdr. Never worked again for dvb-t either.

    Reply
  18. icanbreathenosmoke
    icanbreathenosmoke says:

    try out HDSDR, if you find a station broadcasting morse code, you can set
    it to cw and the program will print out what is being said

    Reply
  19. Mario Alfonso Arreola A. Flores
    Mario Alfonso Arreola A. Flores says:

    The hackers for charity site it’s not working. Or at least not for me.
    Whenever I try to enter the site it sends me to google

    Reply
  20. Galen Thurber
    Galen Thurber says:

    reference links: radioreference – com, eham – net, 26.480 – 26.950 in USA
    is Government and unlikely to be FM. Is there a shortwave station @26.82?
    Could be the software is unable to receive the low frequencies and instead
    picking up the 4th harmonic 107.3 or it could be a FM receiver’s mixing
    frequency. Doubt the SDR can go that low in frequency

    Reply
  21. Dave Alexander
    Dave Alexander says:

    Would that dongle pick up the hydrogen band? If it does I can see a
    satellite dish being repurposed as a radio telescope… 

    Reply
  22. Xavier Frosth
    Xavier Frosth says:

    This is pretty amazing what you can find on the internet by browsing by
    chance and finding out cool stuff, I enjoyed your 2nd episiode of coding
    101 and this current episode of hak5 podcast, really awesome and
    informative :), Keep up the Cool Jazz !!! Two Thumbs Up :)

    Reply
  23. m sven
    m sven says:

    I just got mine in the mail and have been playing with it for a while.
    AWESOME! I need to get away from my computer/desk because it gets a fair
    amount of interference…Thanks!

    Reply
  24. Darrell Harvey
    Darrell Harvey says:

    Here’s something else I found for anyone who wants to hook in to a
    “standard” coax antenna. It’s an “F” to “Coax” cable that’ll fit the dongle
    and let you hook up to your outdoor coax antenna or even a set of “Rabbit
    Ears” inside if you want to do that.
    [ulr]
    http://www.amazon.com/coaxial-coax-cable-assembly-female/dp/B00CTJN480/ref=pd_luc_sim_01_04_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1%5B/url%5D
    Price isn’t too bad but wow, 17 to 24 days for shipping. Guess I need to
    learn to be patient. LOL.

    Reply
  25. DiyEcoProjects
    DiyEcoProjects says:

    HI – thank you this looks like fun. Got a couple of questions please.

    Whats the frequancy range that ive got to look for in a fm dongle? widest
    possable?

    Also… what programs can you use to decode any interesting digital signals
    you may find?

    … thanks you two, love your shows… and the goofy stuff, makes me happy

    Reply
  26. purplemutantas
    purplemutantas says:

    26.8 is just below the Citizens Band (CB). The music was probably a CBer
    operating illegally. The signal would have most likely been AM. If I am not
    mistaken FCC rules prohibit FM below 29 MHz. I do know that the 10 meter
    band (28-30 mhz) is the only amateur radio band you can do FM on in the
    US. As for Narrow FM, it’s used on the 2 meter (144-148 mhz) amateur radio
    band. Shannon, since you are in SF, try listening on 147.045. It’s an
    amateur radio repeater up on sunol ridge that gets bay area wide coverage.
    It’s call sign is W6SRR. That’s one of the repeaters I use, so you might
    get to hear me on it :P

    Reply
  27. purplemutantas
    purplemutantas says:

    When you an SDR dognal, get the adapter cable so you use a different
    antenna. The included antenna SUCKS!. I have used the dongle with an Ed
    Fong outdoor 2m/70cm ham radio antenna and it worked MUCH better than the
    stock antenna. A discone antenna wouldbe even better. Even just a long wire
    out the window would work better.

    Reply

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