I was looking at getting the ZYNQ7020 Pluto+ board as my first SDR. It costs around $250. Does anyone have any experience with it?

Hello , i purchased a RTL-SDR and finally got it working with VRS but I would like to access from my phone while im not home. I been searching for a day or two for help on accessing my Virtual Radar Server from my phone while I am not home. Is this possible? If so can anyone please help. My VRS is working great would just love to see it while I’m not home. Thanks

I'm looking to get my first sdr and I saw that there are pluto+ boards, also known as libresdr or zynqsdr for around $270. In comparison a rtlsdr. Blog V4 is about $50. What can I do on a pluto+ board that I couldn't do on am rtlsdr? Which would you recommend? I am hoping to do some direction finding research but the KrakenSDR is way out of my budget. Thanks Here's the link to the pluto+ board https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMNMFYn

Currently, I want to show some students at a school how to use an SDR (Software Defined Radio) to record FM radio signals from NOAA satellites using an SDR dongle and convert the recording to a satellite weather image. ( SDR dongle:NooElec NESDR Mini RTL2832 + Antenna)

I'm using Gpredict to track the NOAA satellite, but I haven't been able to find any strong signals at the satellite's band frequency using the tiny antenna that came with the SDR dongle. I'm now facing the dilemma of whether to make or buy a new antenna. I would appreciate any suggestions on how to construct or purchase a suitable antenna. The dongle is connected to the 5 volt USB-port, is that sufficient energy for the antenna?

Di-polo antenna?
https://www.a-centauri.com/articoli/noaa-poes-satellites-reception

Turnstile Antenna, Quadrifilar Helix (QFH) Antenna, Double Cross Antenna (DCA)?

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weather-satellite-images/

Ill keep this short, but will update with common questions.

I have a cheap SDR I run on a windows PC at my desk, which I use to scan to see what's around.
mostly in the 100 and 400 ranges

I don't use it all the time, and would like to offer it up for people in my club to use, even just for a play around.

I use SDR # as its the best for what I use it for, but I dont mind swapping software to something else when im not using it.

The problem is I can't find anything windows based for a remote SDR, like how KiwiSDR does it.

The closest I have found is PhantomSDR, which loads but shows no data.

Or using a SpyServer and giving instructions on how to connect SDR# to the remote server, but thats not as user friendly as just saying "Load this website"

Does anyone have any good SDR software, for windows, which allows for a web based connection to control?

How do I fix this issue with Sdr++ on an android tablet. Need to actually fit the UI on the screen but can’t figure out how…

I Want to use 2 instances of the same “ADS-B Radar (RTL-SDR)” App on a tablet split screen… with Radar on one half and A/C or Map on the other half.

Anyone doing this successfully?

A while back I saw a youtube video where they used some software that used a SDR to scan the entire spectrum repeatedly and logging every frequency that had a signal. The idea was that you just let it run for a few hours or days and at the end you get a list of every frequency that saw activity and how many times it saw a transmission.

Now that I have a RTLSDR, I can't remember the name of the software or find the video again. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

Hello all,

I want to integrate feedback as I am building a Java API for SDR, so I can adjust on course. If you are Java developers, programming in other languages or just have a feedback to share.

Java API for SDR

Feel free to do it; it will help me a lot.

Thanks a lot

Hello!

I’m relatively new to the RTL-SDR community but have already managed to capture my first good images from NOAA and Meteor satellites using my DIY QFH antenna. Now, I’d like to take things a step further and try to receive images from Elektro-L3 satellites.

The setup I’m considering involves using a WiFi antenna, as they are easy to find in Germany. Specifically, I found this one: 2.4 GHz WiFi Grid Parabolic Antenna, 24 dBi.

Is this a good choice? What additional equipment or steps are necessary to successfully capture images?

I’d really appreciate it if someone could point me toward a good guide that explains antennas and the complete setup in detail.

https://imgur.com/a/7x5Uz9c

I got it off of AliExpress. This is the Ham Geeks version. As promised, you are on your own to find suitable software.

Well so now I have a project! ;-) I knew this going into the purchase but it looks so cool and I like the ADI Pluto for its lack of spurs.

Hi all,

Rebuilding my qfh to include the sawbird+ noaa, wondering where it’s best to go, before or after the 4 turn balun?

So

Antenna — sawbird — balun — sdr

Or

Antenna — balun — sawbird — sdr

Or some other setup?

Thanks!

Hey guys. The ISS just passed over my location (Greece) but I didn't pick up anything. The wether is very rainy though, but in the last event I always got something. Is there a transmission break or something cuz I couldn't find any posts from the ariss indicating so.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a project using the ChirpChat module, and I’ve set up a UDP server to receive messages. The module is hitting the correct UDP address, but I’m receiving corrupted or unreadable data like this:

 code!1BRcs ƍqCompressqUncompress%s: %sData is nullInput length is negativeNot enough memoryInput data is corrupted%s unexpected zlib error: %s (%d)Gwxyz0123456789+/AB

Here’s the simple script I’m using to receive the data:

codedata, addr = sock.recvfrom(1024)  # Buffer size of 1024 bytes
ip, port = addr
decoded_data = data.decode('utf-8', errors='ignore')
print(f"Received packet from {ip}:{port} -> {decoded_data}")

What I’ve Tried So Far:

1. Ensured that the UDP address and port are set correctly in the ChirpChat module.
2. Added errors='ignore' in data.decode() to skip undecodable bytes, but it still results in gibberish data.

Questions for the Community:

1. Is there something specific about ChirpChat’s data format that I’m missing?
2. Could the issue be related to encoding/compression used in ChirpChat?
3. Any tips for debugging or decoding this kind of data?

Would really appreciate any help or guidance on how to decode or interpret this data correctly. Thanks in advance! 😊

Hi, I'm fairly new to radio and am planning on buying some rtlsdr dongles. I would like to experiment with signal direction finding. From what I've read, I could potentially use the pseudo-doppler effect or potentially multiple receivers. My question is, would I be better off buying multiple sdr receivers with directional antennas, and then would I use time difference or could I maybe use signal strength difference to determine signal direction?

Alternatively, would I be better off buying a single rtlsdr with an antenna switcher, and then using the pseudo-doppler effect to determine signal direction? Is there any recommended software for this application? If it is relevant, I will primarily be looking for 433mhz signals. Sorry if any of this stuff is fairly obvious, thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Edit: Also I am aware that the KrakenSDR exists but is a fair way out of my budget. I'm just interested in whether I can get something working with a bit less

I think I overloaded my RTL-SDR Dongle by putting it next to my fm transmitter do you think its gonna work again and how can i fix it?

I have a rtl-sdr v3 and I decided it would be ok to set it up while dealing with 5 kids, 3 dogs, wrapping last minute gifts, and getting dinner ready. Anyway, I installed airspy in my laptop - HP windows 11- the program starts fine but says it can't find the dongle. Any advice/ tips I can try later after the holiday madness is over?

Hi, some time ago my neighbours car was stolen by some people going up to his door with a laptop and 'cloning his key' and opening and starting it. Since I only own a very old car I didn't really understand it at the time, but for the holidays I rented a new car (VW Tiguan) that has a key which doesn't have to be inserted to start the engine. I have some alone time with the car tomorrow, can anyone point me to some resources on how this exploit works? I have some experience with normal key fobs with static and rolling codes, and I get the exploit that works when you have access to a key fob and can press the button, but that's not what they did. I have a hackrf and rtlsdr dongles. Purely educational. Thanks!

So I'm considering buying a Version 3 or 4 but not sure what's the best to have in mainly using for HF stuff

Can anyone help me get my ublox 7 working. It seems to be seeing satellites but it can’t get a fix on them. I know that it’s getting them because it works on my windows pic in the same exact spot. Not sure what’s wrong here

Hello everyone! I created a project to duplicate OOK signals from the air, for people who do not have the hackrf or similar SDR transceivers. You will need any SDR receiver, ESP32 and a simple ASK transmitter. Please note, I forgot to mention this in the readme file. In the firmware for ESP32, you need to change the WiFi network name and password to your own. Later, I will somehow finish this, I just have little free time, school, etc.

https://github.com/kototronik/signalDUPLI

Can anybody who knows for sure give me advice on this supposedly USRP b210 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Channel-70MHz%E2%80%916GHz-Development-Integration-Connection/dp/B0CXQSGNLH

Is it just another Chinese cheap knock-off?

I have a ublox7 device that works perfectly fine on my windows cpu. When I use dragon os it doesn’t work correctly. The light stops blinking on the gps and it seems like it is seeing the satellites but will not get a fix on them. I know it’s not the location because the windows CPU works fine with it. Any help is much appreciated!!

I've been having a lot of trouble getting a fully functional RTL_SDR blog V4 SDR++ (stable version) server running on a Raspberry Pi 4b (I'll get a 5 if I need to but I have a bunch of extra 4b's already) running the latest version of Raspbian 12 bookworm.

This is basically my process so far. Its gotten me as far as being able to connect to the SDR server on my desk pc and I get static but no discernable signal anywhere even on known frequencies that work with the same SDR and another computer.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install -y joe build-essential cmake git libfftw3-dev libglfw3-dev libglew-dev libvolk2-dev libzstd-dev libsoapysdr-dev libairspyhf-dev libairspy-dev libiio-dev libad9361-dev librtaudio-dev libhackrf-dev librtlsdr-dev libbladerf-dev liblimesuite-dev p7zip-full wget libusb-1.0-0-dev

cd
mkdir SDRppServer
cd SDRppServer
git clone git://osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
cd rtl-sdr/
mkdir build
cd build
sudo cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
make -j 4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
sudo cp ../rtl-sdr.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
cd /etc/modprobe.d
sudo joe blacklist-rtl.conf

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
blacklist rtl2830
blacklist rtl2832
blacklist dvb-t

sudo cat blacklist-rtl.conf

reboot

rtl_test -t

cd ~/SDRppServer
git clone https://github.com/AlexandreRouma/SDR...
cd SDRPlusPlus
mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake .. -DOPT_BUILD_AIRSPY_SOURCE=OFF -DOPT_BUILD_AIRSPYHF_SOURCE=OFF -DOPT_BUILD_HACKRF_SOURCE=OFF -DOPT_BUILD_PLUTOSDR_SOURCE=OFF -DOPT_BUILD_SOAPY_SOURCE=OFF
make -j 4
sudo make install

Thanks for your time. Any help is appreciated. I feel like I'm almost there.