Tag Archives: RTL-SDR

Nooelec RTL-SDR giveaway at AmateurRadio.com

AmateurRadio.com has teamed up with Nooelec.com to give away RTL-SDR packages to 10 hams. To be eligible to enter the competition, you must be a registered amateur radio operator, and you must comment on the competition page. The prizes are: Two (2) Complete HF sets including NESDR Mini receiver and accessories; Two (2) Complete Touch […]

Rtl_fm Guide: The long lost documentation

Kyle Keen has written up documentation on his Rtl_fm utility, which enhances RTL-SDR operation on older PCs. Rtl_fm is a little utility I wrote for the RTL-SDR project. The program was made to fill a gap in software defined radio: all the computers weaker than a Pentium 4. Basically, an Atom processor processor does not […]

Decoding radio-controlled bus stop displays

Oona Räisänen (a/k/a Windytan) is a self-taught signals and electronics hacker from Helsinki, Finland, who is fascinated by mysteries, codes and ciphers, and vintage tech. She’s previously written regarding the use of digital transmissions carried on FM broadcast subcarriers as a means of supplying data to digital information signs used at bus stops.

RTL-SDR + SDR Radio + Funcube Sat

Amateur radio operator N4JTC has written a blog post about his experiences using the RTL-SDR dongle to receive the Funcube Satellite. With the recent record number of cubesat launches this month most Amateur Radio enthusiasts been busy, myself included. There hasn’t been a better time to get into receiving these satellites. With the inexpensive hardware, […]

Decoding FLEX pagers using RTL-SDR and Linux

Superkuh2 demonstrates how to decode FLEX pager radio traffic. He uses gr-pager and zarya’s implementation of it on the Linux platform with the RTL-SDR dongle. This script runs at a 250 KS/s sample rate and decodes one 12.5 KHz channel only. Internally it uses gnuradio’s optfir to generate low pass taps stopping at 12.5 KHz […]

R-Pi and RTL-SDR = AFSK transmission between two Linux boxes

This video depicts the successful transmission of AFSK data via a radio link between two Linux machines using a R-Pi and an RTL-SDR dongle. The crew at Kprod posted this cool RTL-SDR project on their blog. They use minimodem to do the encoding in a FLAC or in a WAV format, then use the R-Pi […]

EFERGY E2 Classic FSK decoding using RTL-SDR and R-Pi

Nathaniel Elijah has posted the a complete working prototype of an EFERGY E2 CLASSIC Transmission decoder using a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR USB Dongle. The EFERGY E2 Classic is an electrical usage monitor which displays information received from associated wireless energy sensors. Nathaniel writes, “It is now possible to capture those 10s to 20s power […]

Receiving, decoding and decrypting GSM with RTL-SDR

Domi007 has been experimenting with using the RTL-SDR dongle to receive and analyze GSM signals for research and academic purposes. He has posted a four parttutorial explaining his use of GNU Radio companion, Wireshark and other open source software to receive and analyze and decode GSM packets. The above link is for part one of […]

Detecting the Perseids meteor shower using RTL-SDR

Amateur radio operation EB3FRN demonstrates how he used an RTL-SDR dongle tuned to a distant VHF transmitter as a passive radar receiver to view the echoes produced by the meteor’s ionization. The signal he received was from the Graves radar system on 143.050 MHz, using a VHF ground plane connected to the dongle. He displayed […]

RTL-SDR spectrum analyzer for BeagleBone Black using ViewRF software

Stephen Ong previously released this video demonstrating the use of RTL-SDR dongle with the BeagleBone dev board to function as a spectrum analyzer. The software making this possible is known as ViewRF and Stephen has now released the instructions and code links for this project.

Tracking low earth satellites using RTL-SDR

Travis Goodspeed has been experimenting with remote satellite tracking over the internet. His setup uses a satellite dish originally used with a mobile earth station on maritime vessels. Movement of the dish is accomplished with servos and an EiBotBoard” wired into a BeagleBone. Travis describes further, “My initial build using an RTL-SDR dongle. Data processing […]

Tutorial: Kali Linux with GNU Radio, GQRX and RTL-SDR dongle

If you’ve tried to install GNU Radio from binaries without success, this video from NeedSec is for you. He demonstrates how to intall GNU Radio on Kali Linux from source, and confirms operation of the RTL-SDR dongle using GQRX radio receiver software.

RTL-SDR dsd tutorial: monitoring P25 digital voice

The crew over at RTL-SDR.com has posted a simple tutorial on using the RTL-SDR dongle and free SDR# and Digital Speech Decoder software (dsd) to monitor P25 digital radio voice comms. They describe, “Digital radio voice communications are becoming more commonly used in the radio spectrum. This is due to the various improvements offered over […]

Tutorial: receiving ACARS with RTL-SDR

This posting on RTL-SDR.com provides a good explanation of how to receive and decode the aeronautical digital communications known as Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) generally found on 131.55 MHz. Their technique uses the RTL-SDR dongle tuned by SDR# which feeds into the decoding program. The tutorial also contains links to several videos […]

RTL-SDR monitors ADS-B with ADSB# and adsbScope

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is a radio communications system used by aircraft worldwide to transmit position and identification information. It uses a frequency of 1090 MHz, sending data using a modulation scheme called Pulse Position Modulation (PPM). To monitor this system you could purchase a dedicated ADS-B receiver for several hundred dollars, or design your […]

RTL-SDR scanner

Al from Ear to Ear Oak has released this open source cross platform Python frequency scanning GUI for the OsmoSDR rtl-sdr library. The software scans a range of frequencies and plots the result, allowing you to find signals to investigate. The RTL dongle has a maximum bandwith of about 2.8MHz but with this you can […]

RTL-SDR spectrum analyzer on the Beaglebone

Alexandru Csete, amateur radio operator OZ9AEC, has developed this spectrum analyzer running on a Beaglebone dev board. He calls the project the rtlizer, designed to be a simple real-time spectrum analyzer that uses an RTL2832U DVB-T receiver (RTL-SDR USB stick) and runs on a Beaglebone, or any other device with librtlsdr and Gtk+ installed. You […]

Receiving Oregon Scientific sensors with RTL-SDR

Kevin Mehall got his RTL-SDR dongle and wasted no time in developing a decoder using GNU Radio for the 433MHz transmissions of Oregon Scientific remote temperature sensors (v1 protocol). These devices transmit on 433.9 MHz sending data packets containing the temperature data every 30 seconds. The transmitter uses On-off keying and the 32 data bits […]

Dongle Shootout: Funcube vs RTL SDR

Kanal von MegaOscarVideos from Germany presents a two-part video comparision of the Funcube dongle and a RTL-SDR DVB-T dongle, in this case a Hama Nano version. The two devices are connected to the same antenna and using identical test systems from a geostationary INMARSAT satellite to compare received signal to noise ratios (SNR).