Yes, there are a confusing number of Linuxes, that's partly why I avoid them and use OpenBSD. I think Red Hat is only commercial now, try Fedora for the closest. Ubuntu will probably work, I didn't like it because I found it too "dumbed down", meant to appeal to Windows users. Ubuntu is supposedly based on Debian, which I've had installed for a few years and like it much better. Debian is "Deb" and "Ian", Ian is a ham.
>The default compiler gcc is probably what you want. You don't mention what software you're trying to build. I had no problem building the Osmocom suite under my old Debian version, no extra libraries needed. But: my understanding from somewhere is that this suite of programs (rtl_*) exists because some ARM machines like the Raspberry Pi couldn't handle Gnuradio.
Gnuradio may be what you really want.
>
>Gnuradio (http://www.gnuradio.org) is very versatile, bordering on confusing. Part of it is the RTLSDR or Osmocom source from Osmocom which connects to the dongle. Then you use the gunradio-companion to drag and drop different signal processing blocks onto a flow graph, the output of that is a Python program which hopefully does what you want. Start at the gnuradio web site and follow the build guide. Most of the work is getting the dependancies you need installed. You don't need the parts for hardware you don't have.
>
>Makefiles come with various programs, but most of this uses cmake to build the actual makefiles. Typically, you cd into the source directory, mkdir build, cd build, then "cmake ../". Track down things missing/wrong, modify your cmake cache file to fix it up, then when you have no errors, do make and make install. It works pretty well because
you can set options in your cache file and they migrate down the line into makefiles. Both the Osmocom stuff and Gnuradio use cmake, but you can avoid it if you want to.
>
>If you need sensitivity and freedom from spurious noises you might find the NooElec dongle isn't the best way to go. Take a look at
>http://wavelab.homestead.com/HF_VHF_multi_index.html
>I bought a dozen of the MC13535 chips from http://www.futurlec.com for $1.20 each, plus the ceramic filters, crystals, etc. If you don't need frequency agility they might work out well. Futurlec isn't fast, but they have some good deals.
>
> Alan
>
>
>
>-----
>Radio Astronomy - the ultimate DX
>
>
>
>>________________________________
>> From: Wayne Sanders <wsanders(a)xplornet.com>
>>To: osmocom-sdr(a)lists.osmocom.org
>>Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2013 11:40 PM
>>Subject: any one brave enough to help a newbie with getting started with SDR
>>
>>Good day all
>> I know that this may nor be the proper or correct place to request some basic assistance but I will tempt the wrath of the few.
>> First off has the packaging for Linux changed there are many more versions now compared to 24 years ago when I dabbled with it running a packet radio bbs. It was Red Hat country then. Now ?
>> Any way My questions are of the where to start kind.
>>
>> Step 1 Have selected Ubuntu as the o/s got it installed
>>
>> step 2 need to know what form of compiler is needed.
>> Worked 28 years ago with Borland's C++
>>
>> Step 3 what are the liberaies that I require and where may they
>> be found.
>>
>> Step 4 And of course a suitable Make File.
>>
>> As all can see I am jut
renewing a friend ship with a very powerfull o/s and of course are having the steep learning curve all over again. But expect that I will enjoy it.
>> Project at this time is using the NooElec R820T SDR & DVB-T
>> Dongle to monitor an number of frequencys in the
>> analoge area 54mhz up for Pasive radar detection of
>> meteors.
>>Thanking all in advance.
>> If the above questions are deemed off topic again I apoligize and would request that a direct e-mail answer to wsanders(a)xplornet.com be used if it should not be posted
>>I remain wayne sanders ve7duc and RDL-OBS observatory
>>
>>
>>
>>Wayne Sanders
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Good day all
I know that this may nor be the proper or correct place to request some
basic assistance but I will tempt the wrath of the few.
First off has the packaging for Linux changed there are many more
versions now compared to 24 years ago when I dabbled with it running a
packet radio bbs. It was Red Hat country then. Now ?
Any way My questions are of the where to start kind.
Step 1 Have selected Ubuntu as the o/s got it installed
step 2 need to know what form of compiler is needed.
Worked 28 years ago with Borland's C++
Step 3 what are the liberaies that I require and where may they
be found.
Step 4 And of course a suitable Make File.
As all can see I am jut renewing a friend ship with a very powerfull
o/s and of course are having the steep learning curve all over again.
But expect that I will enjoy it.
Project at this time is using the NooElec R820T SDR & DVB-T
Dongle to monitor an number of frequencys in the
analoge area 54mhz up for Pasive radar detection of
meteors.
Thanking all in advance.
If the above questions are deemed off topic again I apoligize and would
request that a direct e-mail answer to wsanders(a)xplornet.com be used if
it should not be posted
I remain wayne sanders ve7duc and RDL-OBS observatory
Wayne Sanders
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
>