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Questions re SDRplay

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 11:06 am
by vk3pb
Hi all

I stumbled across a video about SDRplay and I have a few questions please. I'd be grateful for some assistance.

First my interest in SDRplay is for use as hardware in building my own shortwave radio/ communications receiver. unlike many other people I am completely uninterested in the waterfall or other visual aspects that one can use. the kind of radio I would like to build would simply have knobs to tune the radio with no keypad, keyboard, mouse and a minimum of buttons.

Ideally I would use a Raspberry Pi model 3 to drive SDRplay. The Pi would run a python program written by me which would monitor a number of inputs namely the analog pins on the Pi which would be connected to various pots. The pi would then translate the settings read on the pts to command an intermediary program also running on the pi which would talk to the SDRplay and tell it what frequency to tune to, audio bandwidth, mode etc. The digital aspects of the setup would be invisible to the user who would operate and interface with the receiver in the same way as older communications receivers with the exception of using a digital tuning readout.

My questions are.

1, How suitable for this purpose would the SDR play be?

2. Could a Raspberry Pi drive the SDRplay?

3. If so, what software could a python program talk to drive the sdrplay, or could the python program directly command the sdrplay?

4. What is the audio quality of the SDRplay like? Is there much distortion?

5. What is the maximum audio bandwidth on AM and LSB? Some AM stations transmit a much wider signal than they are legally allowed to. Could the SDR decode an AM audio bandwidth of 26 kHz?

6. Does the SDRplay have a noise blanker?

7. Is the SDRplay sensitive on the shortwave bands?

Thanking you

Peter VK3PB

Re: Questions re SDRplay

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:09 pm
by jon
We came close to this in a fun demo we put together for RS-Components to celebrate their 80 years of being 'RadioSpares': https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/s ... coni-cr100

You can see how enthusiastic RS were about it in their video here (click on 50 seconds into this video): https://youtu.be/6j752aReJ2Y

Jon (SDRplay)

Re: Questions re SDRplay

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 7:42 am
by Sasan
vk3pb wrote:Hi all

I stumbled across a video about SDRplay and I have a few questions please. I'd be grateful for some assistance.

First my interest in SDRplay is for use as hardware in building my own shortwave radio/ communications receiver. unlike many other people I am completely uninterested in the waterfall or other visual aspects that one can use. the kind of radio I would like to build would simply have knobs to tune the radio with no keypad, keyboard, mouse and a minimum of buttons.

Ideally I would use a Raspberry Pi model 3 to drive SDRplay. The Pi would run a python program written by me which would monitor a number of inputs namely the analog pins on the Pi which would be connected to various pots. The pi would then translate the settings read on the pts to command an intermediary program also running on the pi which would talk to the SDRplay and tell it what frequency to tune to, audio bandwidth, mode etc. The digital aspects of the setup would be invisible to the user who would operate and interface with the receiver in the same way as older communications receivers with the exception of using a digital tuning readout.

My questions are.

1, How suitable for this purpose would the SDR play be?

2. Could a Raspberry Pi drive the SDRplay?

3. If so, what software could a python program talk to drive the sdrplay, or could the python program directly command the sdrplay?

4. What is the audio quality of the SDRplay like? Is there much distortion?

5. What is the maximum audio bandwidth on AM and LSB? Some AM stations transmit a much wider signal than they are legally allowed to. Could the SDR decode an AM audio bandwidth of 26 kHz?

6. Does the SDRplay have a noise blanker?

7. Is the SDRplay sensitive on the shortwave bands?

Thanking you

Peter VK3PB

1- It's a good device (takin into account its price and functionality it offers)
2- Yes
3- You should call the SDRPlay API via a C program, but writing a Python wrapper around it is not difficult.
4,5,6- In a Software Defined Radio, as the name implies, lots of things are done in software, not hardware; So you can easily change the frequency, bandwidth, modulation and other settings, or turn on/off things like Noise Blankers and various digital filters via software (provided that your software supports them).
7- It's indeed very good when it comes to sensitivity (you can find the exact figures in its data-sheet or other third party reviews). It has also built-in LNAs.

I would suggest you to buy and play with one (or if not possible, search SDRPlay videos in Youtube to see its performance in action)

Have fun

Re: Questions re SDRplay

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 9:06 pm
by someYguy
The SDRPlay should work well for this. But keep in mind also that your Python program will need to provide all of the signal demodulation and filtering as well as basic control.