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Shielding the SDRplay RSP with Copper Tape
The SDRplay RSP is a $149 USD software defined radio that many consider as a next step upgrade from the RTL-SDR. See our recent review for a comparison between the Airspy, SDRplay RSP and HackRF. One...
View ArticleComparing LHCP and RHCP Reception of a Thuraya Satellite with an RTL-SDR and...
Over on YouTube Adam Alicajic 9A4QV (creator of the popular LNA4ALL) has uploaded a video showing a comparison of reception of Thuraya satellites with a LHCP (left hand circular polarization) and RHCP...
View ArticleCreating an RF Proximity Alarm (Close Call) with an RTL-SDR
“Close Call” is a feature that some radio scanners have which notifies the user when there is a radio transmitter that is in the near vicinity (such as from a police radio). It works by detecting the...
View ArticleYouTube video showing Inmarsat C-Band AERO Reception
Last week we posted how programmer Jonti had successfully implemented a C-Band AERO decoder into his JAERO software. C-band AERO signals are the earth downlink portion of AERO. Planes transmit data...
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FlightBox: Commercial RTL-SDR Based ADS-B (1090ES & 978UAT) Receiver for Pilots
For some time now, small aircraft pilots who don’t have access to expensive ~$1000+ ADS-B gear have been successfully using an RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi combination to receive ADS-B and UAT to display...
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RTLSDR4Everyone: Reivew of the Nooelec Ham-It-Up V1.3 and Balun 1:9
Over on his blog rtlsdr4everyone, Akos has posted two new reviews. One post reviews the latest ham-it-up v.13 upconverter and the other reviews the “Balun 1:9″ impedance transformer. An upconverter...
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Hacking Alarm Systems with an RTL-SDR and RFcat
Back in 2014 the author of boredhackerblog.blogspot.com did a final year project for his wireless security class on hacking home alarm systems. His presentation was titled “How we broke into your...
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Building a Direction Finding System with a Frequency Mixer and SDR
David of rowetel.com has recently been working on creating a direction finding system with his HackRF. A direction finder can be used to determine which direction a radio signal is coming from and is...
View ArticleListening to an Astronaut Transmitting from the International Space Station
Over on YouTube user surfrockuk shows a fun and educational use of the RTL-SDR. Every now and then astronauts will arrange a ham radio session where they will communicate with a school. An RTL-SDR can...
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RTLSDR4Everyone: Testing the Nooelec and RTL-SDR Blog Metal Cases
Over on his blog rtlsdr4everyone, author Akos has been testing the metal cases produced by Nooelec and RTL-SDR Blog (this site!). In his post Akos compares the Nooelec aluminium enclosures for the MCX...
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Beta testing a modified RTL-SDR Driver for L-band heat issues
The R820T/2 RTL-SDR’s are known to have a problem that surfaces when trying to listen at L-band frequencies above about 1.5 GHz. As the dongle heats up the internal PLL appears to loose lock, causing...
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Creating a wireless RTL-SDR server with a small OpenWRT WiFi Router
Over on his blog yo2ldk has been experimenting with creating a wireless RTL-SDR server by using a mini OpenWRT based WiFi router (page in Romanian, use Google Translate for English). The router he uses...
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Using Multiple RTL-SDR’s to Capture a Trunking System
An RTL-SDR dongle has a maximum usable bandwidth of about 2.4 MHz which most often isn’t enough to capture an entire trunking system that may be spread out over a larger bandwidth. In order to get...
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Review: FlightAware 1090 MHz ADS-B Antenna and Filter
In this post we will review the FlightAware ADS-B Antenna and their 1090 MHz band pass filter. The FlightAware ADS-B antenna is a collinear type antenna, with 5.5 dBi of gain, a rugged weatherproof...
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Dave from EEVBlog Reviews the Red Pitaya
The Red Pitaya is a type of advanced digital acquisition device (DAQ) that is marketed mainly for use as a type of digital oscilloscope. But it has an on board programmable FPGA and through various...
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HamRadioScience Reviews the Elad FDM-DUO Software Defined Transceiver
The Elad FDM-DUO is a high end $1149 USD Italian made software defined radio transceiver (transmit and receiver) with a frequency range of 10 kHz – 54 MHz, a 16-bit ADC, a bandwidth of up to 6 MHz and...
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Finding GPS Signals from within the Noise Floor with an RTL-SDR
If you were to try to simply spot a GPS signal at 1.575 GHz in the spectrum on a waterfall in a program like SDR# you would probably fail to see anything. This is because GPS signals are very weak, and...
View ArticleBuilding a simple NOAA APT Antenna out of an Umbrella
In order to optimally receive NOAA weather satellite images a special satellite antenna tuned for 137 MHz should to be built. Generally either a QFH or turnstile antenna is recommended as these receive...
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Creating a FSK SSDV data system for High Altitude Balloons
David and Mark are building a 115 kbit/s FSK SSDV (slow scan digital video) data system for high altitude balloons. In their system, on the balloon transmit side they use a Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi...
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RTLSDR4Everyone: Raspberry Pi guide & choosing your first dongle
Over on his blog rtlsdr4everyone author Akos has recently uploaded three new posts. The first post is about the Raspberry Pi minicomputer and the post discusses the merits of using the Raspberry Pi...
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