SDR Tutorial

[AF6LJ]

There has been a few SDR projects scattered around the net.
Now it looks like someone is going to put together a tutorial on rolling your own.

This from Hack A Day......


Enjoy;

[Balint] is starting a software-defined radio tutorial seriesposted Jun 11th 2012 9:01am by Brian Benchoff
filed under: how-to, radio hacks

A few months ago, we saw a hack where a $20 USB TV tuner was transformed into a software-defined radio capable of reading GPS signals, listening to radio transmissions between aircraft and a control tower, and even a simple FM radio. This project is a perfect introduction to the RTL-SDR and Ham radio scene, but getting these projects up and running can be a bit overwhelming for anyone who hasn’t played around with this before. [Balint] is tackling this problem head on with a series of YouTube tutorials to get SDR noobs up and running with GNU Radio and the Realtec USB TV tuner.
To demonstrate the power of software-defined radio, [Balint] is using GNU Radio and the USB TV tuner that started it all, the Ezcap EZTV668 (conveniently back in stock at DealExtreme, but other options exist). Because software-defined radio is a touch confusing for a beginner to wrap their head around, [Balint] is beginning his tutorial series by explaining radio sources, sinks, and the GNU Radio interface.
Already, [Balint] has put up 5 tutorials and made the flowgraph files available in his gr-baz project. He’s doing a wonderful job opening up the software-defined radio scene to beginners, but he’s still looking for some feedback. If you have a suggestion on what [Balint] should cover next, leave a note in the YouTube comments and we’re sure [Balint] will get around to that eventually.

[KE0MD]

I've got one of those RTL tuner dongles on the way from an ebay seller right now. Can't wait to start playing with it!

[N0SYA]

Sue are you running one of these? If so how do you like it and what model is it?

[AF6LJ]

Sue are you running one of these? If so how do you like it and what model is it?

No I am thinking about getting one to play with.

[G0CWA]

No I am thinking about getting one to play with.

Hi Sue long time no speak, I've just got one myself an EZCap one. Ive been playng with it and have found both HDSDR and Winrad drivers corrupt my windows USB Drivers, I may be doing something wrong. they both work however but have a tendancy to "Lock up" and the dongle needs removing from PC and reconnecting to start working properly again.

However I have found the Sharp SDR at http://sdrsharp.com/ seems to work alot better with no problems excellent installation instructions are also included.

First impression is works well but definitely not as sensative as I would have hoped.

Excellent value however for a new radio "Toy"

73 for now Nick G0CWA

[N8XRE]

Hi Sue long time no speak, I've just got one myself an EZCap one. Ive been playng with it and have found both HDSDR and Winrad drivers corrupt my windows USB Drivers, I may be doing something wrong. they both work however but have a tendancy to "Lock up" and the dongle needs removing from PC and reconnecting to start working properly again.

Trick is to install the HDSDR drivers for only that device, don't have the util install for all of them! Also, "tuner=e4k" in the EXTIO panel tells it to use an alternate driver for the Elonics tuner chip that leaves it less prone to lockup.

However I have found the Sharp SDR at http://sdrsharp.com/ seems to work alot better with no problems excellent installation instructions are also included.

First impression is works well but definitely not as sensative as I would have hoped.

I'm going to have to go check out SDR# to run the widget I bought, mostly because I'm getting tired of having to fiddle the settings around every time I go to fire up my Softrock Ensemble in HDSDR.

This being said, the reason it's not as sensitive is that it's probably getting swamped, doubly so if you've put any sort of gain antenna on it and you've got the tune frequency less than 260MHz or so.

That's the magic frequency where the e4000 tuner chip stops having any filtering capability (I've spent some time in the tuner chip driver source code to see how the things work, Elonics sucks for datasheet availability). There's also often no filtering to speak of between the antenna jack and the chip input. If you live in an urban area, FM broadcast is enough to wipe out the front end on the thing.


The widget I ordered thankfully came with a MCX connector for the antenna , so I rigged up an adapter chain to put an FM broadcast trap in-line with the 2m antenna I was using. Made a world of difference. I highly suggest every rtl-sdr experimenter do at least this, if not full-bore bandpass filters for anything < 260Mhz you're wanting to receive.

Think of what you'd do to fight overload and intermodulation in a badly-filtered HT (other than set fire to it or sell it! ), and you're on the right track to improving the reception on the things.

[G0CWA]

Trick is to install the HDSDR drivers for only that device, don't have the util install for all of them! Also, "tuner=e4k" in the EXTIO panel tells it to use an alternate driver for the Elonics tuner chip that leaves it less prone to lockup..

Hi I've tried this trick it improved matters but did not cure the tendancy to lock up before I posted, my windows USB drivers were definitely corrupted by the software drivers as units that worked in the ports before wouldn't afterwards until I restored the origional windows drivers, maybe I'm just unlucky.

The advantage of the Sharp version is most of the drivers are included in the software and are compatable with the windows ones. They are only active when the dongle is installed.

Thanks for the info though I forgot to include it in my post, I never thought to try filtering to reduce broadcast interference, good idea I'll have a play,

Thanks for planting the seed de Nick G0CWA

[AF6LJ]

In regard to corrupt downloads......
Some anti-virus software doesn't play well with Windows-Seven if that is what you are running. I recently ceased using AVG because of corrupt download issues and Windows-Seven.

[N8XRE]

In regard to corrupt downloads......
Some anti-virus software doesn't play well with Windows-Seven if that is what you are running. I recently ceased using AVG because of corrupt download issues and Windows-Seven.

Sue, honestly, the Microsoft Security Essentials package is probably your best option right now for AV on Win7. I mostly do network engineering these days, but did a lot of AV softwre support in the past. MSE is the only one recently that hasn't made me want to toss a PC out the window in frustration, and doesn't make my Core i5 laptop run like a Pentium III.

[G0CWA]

In regard to corrupt downloads......
Some anti-virus software doesn't play well with Windows-Seven if that is what you are running. I recently ceased using AVG because of corrupt download issues and Windows-Seven.

Hi Sue

It wasn't the download that was corrupted the downloaded drivers worked but they corrupted my windows drivers. In saying that I agree about corrupted downloads I've not had any problems myself but I know it does happen with W7 X64 and some Anti virus/firewalls.

73 de Nick G0CWA