Back in December 2016, Shaun Whitehead of ThumbNet sent me of their new rtlsdr-based N3 Nongles but I was too busy to do anything serious with SDR. Now that I got a 137 MHz turnstile antenna up for testing I had an obvious opportunity to try it with the weather satellites.
rtlsdr
First contact with the Cubieboard
I got myself a Cubieboard some months ago, not because I needed one by because I had the opportunity to join a group purchase organized by some friends back then. I wasn’t looking for a new board, however, the Cubieboard looked interesting because of the onboard SATA connector. Plus the analog audio input / output on the board may also prove useful for SDR and digital voice experiments.
A 2-channel AIS receiver using rtl-sdr and gnuais
For some time now I have been in great need of small and cheap AIS receivers that could be used for guiding various tracking equipment during Copenhagen Suborbitals missions. AIS stands for Automatic Identification System and is used by maritime vessels for reporting various status, including position, heading and speed.
Hardware AGC in RTL-SDR devices
I was testing the Gqrx FM stereo code by Alex Grinkov using an RTL-SDR dongle when I noticed that the recently added auto-gain in the driver can be quite useful.
NOAA APT reception with Gqrx and rtlsdr
About a year ago I posted a step-by-step guide about how to receive NOAA APT weather satellite images using Gqrx SDR and the Funcube Dongle. Today, I tried to repeat the procedure using my ezcap eztv666 rtlsdr dongle with very good results.
Gqrx with RTL-SDR and UHD support
Support for RTL2832U-based DVB-T dongles and USRP devices from Ettus Research is now available in the Gqrx source code repository.
Support for RTL2832U-based DVB-T devices is available via the rtl-sdr and gr-osmosdr libraries. This also provides support for Ettus Research USRP’s if the gr-uhd package has been installed prior to compiling gr-osmosdr. A complete build from scratch that would support all hardware devices would thus include the following steps: