January 2013 - osmocom-sdr - lists.osmocom.org

how about: rtl_drm?
by Alan Corey 31 Jan '13

31 Jan '13

Just an idea, really, I don't know how complex the decoding is. Or rtl_fm for Android? Just got an upconverter for my dongle, sitting here listening to music from faraway exotic places on HF. Using rtlsdr.dll with SDR#. Alan ----- Radio Astronomy - the ultimate DX

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rtl_tcp port for Android
by Мартин Маринов 30 Jan '13

30 Jan '13

I am pleased to announce I have released an RTL2832U driver for android for the benefit of all of the developers working on SDR. The app could be found here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=marto.rtl_tcp_andro And the sources are released under GPL2+ here https://github.com/martinmarinov/rtl_tcp_andro- So how do you use it in case you want to develop your own Android application that uses rtl_tcp_andro? It's quite simple, you need to add just one line of code to your existing Android app (assuming the user has the driver installed). *startActivityForResult(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW).setData(Uri.parse("iqsrc://-a 127.0.0.1 -p 123", START_REQ_CODE);* Where START_REQ_CODE is a random number you assign. This will start rtl_tcp_andro on the localhost at port 123. As you see the thing after iqsrc:// is just the command line arguments you pass to a regular rtl_tcp. If you want to be more fancy and do error capture, you should override this method in your Android activity and perform error detection as so: *@Override* * protected void onActivityResult(final int requestCode, final int resultCode, final Intent data) {* * * * runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {* * * * @Override* * public void run() {* * if (requestCode == START_REQ_CODE) {* * if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) { // rtl_tcp_andro has been started successfully!}* * else {* * * * try {* * switch (data.getIntExtra("marto.rtl_tcp_andro.RtlTcpExceptionId", -1)) {* * case 0:* * // exception - permission denied* * break;* * case 1:* * // exception - root required* * break;* * case 2:* * // exception - no devices found* * break;* * case 4:* * // exception - the user needs to reconnect the device* * break;* * default:* * // unknown exception* * break;* * }* * } catch (Exception e) {}* * }* * }* * }* * });* * }* It is that simple! rtl_tcp_andro will take care of showing different dialogs to the user for device selection. It will also take care of non-rooted devices by communicating with rtl_tcp_androi and sending the appropriate file descriptors, etc. You don't need to worry about all of the magic that is happening in the background - you only need to monitor the result of your intent request. If you get *RESULT_OK* then you are ready to go. Now what remains is to implement your own TCP client that connects to the appropriate host/port number and communicates using the *rtl_tcp* protocol. Make sure you send the additional "exit" command that rtl_tcp_andro has in order not to leave zombie services behind. That's all if you have any questions, feel free to contact me! Sorry for the bad state of the source code of rtl_tcp_andro, I will add comments as time passes by. Hope to see great new projects on the Android platform :) Thanks, Martin

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RE: RTL-SDR Scanner/Plotter (Al)
by Al 28 Jan '13

28 Jan '13

Hi ben, Thanks, glad you like the scanner although I realise it's a bit of a pain to install all the dependencies under Windows or OS X. I intended the software to be used to find interesting signals, which you could then analyse in other software, never really as a spectrum analyser (the thought of implementing all the maths gives me a headache!). Once I've found something I often use sdrsharp to investigate it and if I'm still interested I move onto GNU Radio. I would really recommend you try GNU Radio, although you may find it has a steep learning curve. For example you could use VirtualBox (virtualbox.org) to run an Ubuntu machine on your desktop (compiling under Windows can be tricky) . There's plenty of information on both virtual machines and GNU Radio installation around. Good luck, Al > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:45:08 +1100 > From: Ben Ryan <benryanau(a)hotmail.com> > To: <osmocom-sdr(a)lists.osmocom.org> > Subject: RE: RTL-SDR Scanner/Plotter (Al) > Message-ID: <SNT139-W63EB2510A068891AA8A25B6160(a)phx.gbl> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > Hey mate this looks really great! > I've dreamed about building something similar for an RTLSDR, but much fancier (ping-pong on 'interesting' chirps, yo-yo sweeps to find voice/burst comms, trended plots etc etc). A poor man's wideband spectrum analyser. But I can't code to save my life.. > However, wait long enough and funny things happen :) You've made a great start with this project, especially given there was NOTHING out there prior (that I've seen anyhow. Certainly for Win32.) > All the module/package dependencies are a bit of a pain but hey, you've got a working app :) > Love to try it soon when I get a chance, hope you develop it up into a full-bllown RTLSDR spectrum analyser / "interesting signal" finder! > > Cheers > ben > > >> Message: 1 >> Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:53:01 +0000 >> From: Al <al(a)eartoearoak.com> >> To: osmocom-sdr(a)lists.osmocom.org >> Subject: RTL-SDR Scanner/Plotter >> Message-ID: <50FD726D.5010000(a)eartoearoak.com> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed >> >> Hi, >> >> I thought you may be interested in a program I've written, it's a Python >> GUI which scans a set of frequencies and plots the resulting levels, >> which can be saved for later viewing or exported to a CSV file. >> >> Source: https://github.com/EarToEarOak/RTLSDR-Scanner >> More info: http://www.eartoearoak.com/software/rtlsdr-scanner >> >> I wrote it to help me find signals over a wide bandwidth, to get a >> better view of the RF space. I hope you find it useful. >> >> Al

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RTL-SDR Scanner/Plotter
by Al 28 Jan '13

28 Jan '13

Hi, I thought you may be interested in a program I've written, it's a Python GUI which scans a set of frequencies and plots the resulting levels, which can be saved for later viewing or exported to a CSV file. Source: https://github.com/EarToEarOak/RTLSDR-Scanner More info: http://www.eartoearoak.com/software/rtlsdr-scanner I wrote it to help me find signals over a wide bandwidth, to get a better view of the RF space. I hope you find it useful. Al

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rtl-sdr and gr-osmosdr
by tokens＠myranch.com 26 Jan '13

26 Jan '13

I have installed these using the procedures shown in the wiki. I didn’t see any errors during the installation. The packages are on the computer but they are not listed amongst the sources on GNU Radio Companion. If I type in the terminal rtl_test –t I get: Found 1 device(s): 0: ezcap USB 2.0 DVB-T/DAB/FM dongle Using device 0: ezcap USB 2.0 DVB-T/DAB/FM dongle usb_open error -3 Failed to open rtlsdr device #0 Any suggestions? Many thanks, Al

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SDR Touch and licensing
by Мартин Маринов 24 Jan '13

24 Jan '13

Hi all, I would like to congratulate you on the great job you did with rtl-sdr and I am really admiring you work! I am the developer of SDR Touch, I received a copyright violation notice from one of the developers. I wanted to point out that rtl_tcp_andro and SDR Touch are completely separate binaries in the aggregate called SDRTouch.apk. They are never linked together - neither before, nor after the unrar-ing of the apk onto the user's Android device. They communicate via TCP. Once the installation of the apk is over, the binaries and rtl_tcp_andro reside in completely different directories on the Android device. rtl_tcp_andro is a derivative work of rtl_tcp and is released under GPL2+ - https://github.com/martinmarinov/rtl_tcp_andro- (In order to honour GPL you can actually visit this webiste via the Help message that you see on SDR Touch). rtl_tcp_andro is merely started using Runtime.exec() command. It is never linked - neither statically nor dynamically. Furthermore SDR Touch can happily work without the local rtl_tcp and this is there only for user's convenience. SDR Touch can function over the network without requiring a local rtl_tcp. Since SDR Touch and rtl_tcp are completely separate works, and the user is aware of the license of rtl_tcp_andro and has access to its source code, SDR Touch does not violate GPL2+. It is true they reside in the same installer before being installed on the device, but this is allowed in GPL3 and is called an aggregate. Does it make sense? Is there anything I can do so we can settle this issue once and for all? Thanks, Martin

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SARK-110 Antenna Analyzer [TES09211B] - $360.00 : Seeed Studio Bazaar, Boost ideas, extend the reach
by Jay Salsburg 23 Jan '13

23 Jan '13

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/preorder-sark110-antenna-analyzer-p-1270.ht ml?cPath=174

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RE: RTL-SDR Scanner/Plotter (Al)
by Ben Ryan 22 Jan '13

22 Jan '13

Hey mate this looks really great! I've dreamed about building something similar for an RTLSDR, but much fancier (ping-pong on 'interesting' chirps, yo-yo sweeps to find voice/burst comms, trended plots etc etc). A poor man's wideband spectrum analyser. But I can't code to save my life.. However, wait long enough and funny things happen :) You've made a great start with this project, especially given there was NOTHING out there prior (that I've seen anyhow. Certainly for Win32.) All the module/package dependencies are a bit of a pain but hey, you've got a working app :) Love to try it soon when I get a chance, hope you develop it up into a full-bllown RTLSDR spectrum analyser / "interesting signal" finder! Cheers ben > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:53:01 +0000 > From: Al <al(a)eartoearoak.com> > To: osmocom-sdr(a)lists.osmocom.org > Subject: RTL-SDR Scanner/Plotter > Message-ID: <50FD726D.5010000(a)eartoearoak.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi, > > I thought you may be interested in a program I've written, it's a Python > GUI which scans a set of frequencies and plots the resulting levels, > which can be saved for later viewing or exported to a CSV file. > > Source: https://github.com/EarToEarOak/RTLSDR-Scanner > More info: http://www.eartoearoak.com/software/rtlsdr-scanner > > I wrote it to help me find signals over a wide bandwidth, to get a > better view of the RF space. I hope you find it useful. > > Al >

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Windows driver for RTL283 device
by Robert Durkacz 22 Jan '13

22 Jan '13

Hello, I am using cygwin with Windows XP but I do not have a good understanding of the Windows OS. I could do with some advice about how the usb driver for the RTL2832U device is meant to be located by the rtl_sdr.c program using the libusb library. For me this program fails with a libusb_open() error of -12. Using the debugger I can see this is due to no driver being found for the RTL2832U device. When the function get_api_type() in windows_usb.c is called it consults the registry for a driver name for the device. In my case it finds RTL2832UUSB and RTL2832UBDA but I suppose this just depends on what is sitting in the registry. Subsequently the program checks to see if the driver name is WINUSB or USBCCGP. Because it is not the program cannot work. Am I meant to ensure either WINUSB or USBGCCP drivers are installed on my computer and must the registry entry for the RTL2832U device point to one of these? If so, is there a recommended procedure to do that? Thanks for any advice Robert Durkacz

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Re: Getting Started...
by Sylvain Munaut 22 Jan '13

22 Jan '13

Hi, You should know that the fw is being rewritten ( branch mci-rewrite ), to use the MCI interface for data transfer, allowing up to 4 MHz transfer. But this will require a HW mod to be detailled later. Cheers, Sylvain

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