Monthly Archives: August 2019

For those of you interested in trying the Raspberry Pi with your RSP, Ham Radio Outlet, in the USA, is now offering a complete kit with everything you need to get up and running with an RSP,   including a bootable SD Card with all the pre-installed software.

This kit features the Raspberry Pi 3B, heatsinks, case, power supply and SD card. (There may be a Pi4 kit in the future, depending on interest level)

Software on the card includes:

Raspbian Buster  (Operating System)

RSP Software and Information 

SoapySDR & SoapyRemote 

CubicSDR 

GnuRadio 

GQRX 

RSP_TCPServer 

ADS-B (dump1090) 

QT-DAB DAB Receiver 

You can provide your own keyboard, mouse and (HDMI) monitor or you can operate it “headless” and control over your local network.

Here is the link to the HRO kit: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=71-003147

The User Guide is available from SDRplay here: https://sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_RPi_Image_Guide.pdf

To explore applications – check out the SDRplay searchable catalog of videos and applications links on: https://sdrplay.com/apps-catalogue/

Many of our customers have bought RSPs for use at HF, and many have been long term short-wave listeners or radio amateurs who are adding the power of an SDR to their set-up.  A lot of them have enjoyed the tutorials and encouragement from Mike, KD2KOG who makes many of the SDRplay video guides, and who also hosts the “HamGuides”  webpage and YouTube channel

However, inspired by our friends at SDR-Kits , who sent him a patch antenna for L-band frequencies,  Mike has started to experiment with satellite signal reception during the past week or so.  You can follow his progress and try it out for yourself by following the videos as they appear on https://www.youtube.com/c/sdrplayhamguides

Here’s a recent example, where Mike shares his success at picking up signals from his car:

As well as videos, Mike has produced a handy guide on how to get started with decoding Inmarsat L-Band transmissions from the I3-F(x) satellites:  https://mega.nz/#!vA9CmKCC!Zeztuk3QcEv7W42mlmtsYmzHx2SXJWIHHKZ3WULQoPI

The following video describes what’s in the accompanying .pdf guide:

So if you have an RSP and got it for one use, just imagine what else you could be tuning into – anywhere between 1kHz and 2GHz!  Share your experiences if you too are trying out L-Band by commenting on the videos.

We are pleased to announce the availability of V1.0b of the Spectrum Analyser software developed by Steve Andrew specifically for the RSP line of products. This is a very much upgraded version of the original alpha release and includes many new features as well as removing the limitations imposed on the previous version. New features include multiple traces, a versatile marker system with maths, peak find and display functions, Zero or non-Zero IF options and an upgraded tracking generator system.

Currently supported devices are:

RSP1 & RSP1A
RSP2 & RSP2pro
RSPduo (single tuner mode)

The latest documentation can be found in the User Manual here.

Please use this forum thread to post any issues. Read the issues already raised and only post if the issue you have found hasn’t been raised. This will help Steve in his development.

Further development information can be found on the forum.

Click here to download the Spectrum Analyser Software (v1.0b Beta release).

We have released  V0.6  of the Raspberry Pi image with SDRplay compatible software : go to https://sdrplay.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4884

This is the first build to support the new Raspberry Pi4;  however it still also supports the Raspberry Pi3 and works with all the RSP family members.

Note: During our testing using GQRX, we noticed high CPU load and some audio stuttering using RPi3B/+ with sample rates of greater than 500 kHz, so we recommend not using the RPi3 if you want to use GQRX. None of these issues were seen using the RPi4

The list of software on this image is: SoapySDR/SoapySDRPlay, SoapyRemote, Cubic SDR, GNU Radio Companion, GQRX, ADSB (Dump1090), QT-DAB receiver and the updated RSP TCP Server

Important Notes from the User Guide:

Audio
During our testing on both RPi3 and RPi4, if a HDMI audio device is automatically discovered on bootup, this seems to disable the 3.5mm audio output. Nothing we did to try to enable the 3.5mm audio output worked. If no HDMI audio device is discovered (for example we connected the HDMI output to a DVI monitor input), then the 3.5mm audio output works fine. We also tested using a USB soundcard and that also worked fine.

OpenGL Hardware Acceleration
CubicSDR uses OpenGL and the Raspbian OS includes experimental hardware acceleration of these libraries. We enable these when a HDMI video device is detected. However, in our testing, enabling these libraries when using an LCD video device causes the OS not to boot. This would appear to be an issue with the new Raspbian OS “Buster”, as this worked fine for the previous Raspbian OS “Stretch”. If this issue is resolved in a future OS build, we will enable these libraries for when an LCD video device is detected in a future release of the image.

Please note: This is a complete OS with software image. Writing the image to a micro SD card will wipe the micro SD card of any other data that is on there, so we recommend you make sure you have backed up any data on your existing micro SD card or you use a new micro SD card.

This video guide shows how easy it is to download the Raspberry Pi SD=card image and get up and running: https://youtu.be/qXThS1XszhQ

This document describes the image contents: https://sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_RP … _Guide.pdf

Please note the following:

1. This software is made available purely for the convenience of users to save them from having to build the software themselves from source code.
2. All software apart from ADS-B is provided by third party developers and SDRplay can take no responsibility for any faults or bugs and is unable to provide support. For any support for these applications, we recommend that users contact the original authors.
3. Where the RSPduo is supported by applications, it can only be used in single tuner mode.

List of known issues:

SoapyRemote
Will only work over LAN connections and locally. It will not work over Wide Area Networks

GQRX
Some limitations with tuner hardware control
Audio only via USB and HDMI audio
CPU load is quite high and may cause audio stuttering

Instructions:

Download image from here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2x7oxy7uq5hor … mg.xz?dl=0

OR

https://sdrplay.com/software/SDRpla … 0.6.img.xz

This file can be burned easily using applications such as Etcher to put the image onto the micro SD card. – https://www.balena.io/etcher

Size: 1.70 GB (1,834,953,912 bytes / size on disk: 1,834,954,752 bytes)

SDRplay_RPi_V0.6.img.xz Checksums:

CRC32: 872713C4
CRC64: 5984959DF053C932
SHA1: 09AEE81434AC63D18818D8C0D03BB61499A8A58C
SHA256: DA7E8EEBB6ACA289316D6D9D487AF818F4F42C4994213C396E81B496B0F5EEAA

That’s it – put the micro SD card into the Raspberry Pi micro SD card slot and boot the system. Allow the system to fully boot and you will see a GUI that will allow you to run each of the applications or read further information.

IMPORTANT – PLEASE NOTE: For remote operation, the default username is pi and the default password is raspberry. So that the image can be used headless straight away, a key has been added. However it is recommended that you replace the key with a new one using this process…

sudo rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*
sudo dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server

Mike, KD2KOG – our man in Florida has always been a sub 30MHz guy, but recently has been smitten by a new addiction to L-Band.  Check out his new HamGuides video: https://youtu.be/NWyYVOdIkoU

Using a patch antenna from our channel partner SDR-Kits he’s getting superb reception and welcomes comments and suggestions via YouTube comments. Your comments really help guide where we go next in supporting and partnering to do more and more.  The RSPs performs particularly well in L-Band – check out the specs for the RSPduo here:  https://sdrplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/RSPDuo-Technical-Information-R1P1.pdf   (see pages 8 and 12 for full gain, noise figure and linearity data)

The HamGuides YouTube channel is a more informal channel than the main SDRplay YouTube channel and your feedback can influence quite rapidly what Mike works on next.

For those of you heading to the Huntsville Hamfest this weekend (August 17-18), be sure to check out our demos and meet Steve KI5ENW from SDRplay.  Steve will be spending time between the Ham Radio Outlet and Kenwood booths.

Steve will also be giving a talk on SDRs and the RSP family at 12 noon on Saturday 17th:

For those who can’t get to the show, check out the W5KUB.com  folks who will be there again this year providing live web coverage of the event – they will be giving away a prize RSP1A to the lucky winner of a special draw which is open to viewers worldwide.

To find out more about the Huntsville Hamfest, go to: https://hamfest.org/

Location: Von Braun Center South Hall,  700 Monroe St SW, Huntsville, AL 35801

Following on from the 49m AM broadcast example posted the other day,  we experimented some more with the new RSPduo diversity software – this time with a Boniwhip vertical and a wire dipole.  This was the layout:

As well as showing how to activate the diversity feature, the resulting video illustrates the benefits possible with a 7MHz amateur radio SSB signal example. It demonstrates how SDRuno diversity and the RSPduo can bring enhanced reception at HF using 2 antennas separated by approximately a quarter wavelength. It uses the the current version of SDRuno (V 1.32) and the dual tuner RSPduo. In this experiment we had a wire dipole with one leg approximately a quarter wavelength from a Boni-Whip vertical – both were picking up similar strength signals before going into “diversity” (max ratio combination) mode.

The benefits of diversity tuning at HF are very dependent on many variables, most notably the changing nature of the reflected signal path and the degree to which noise and unwanted signals are not as coherent as the wanted signal. We look forward to learning more about all these inter-dependencies – we encourage experimentation!  Please send us your videos and we’ll link them to the SDRplay YouTube channel.  Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/f47vX2btxVs

There are many people who are only allowed to put up clandestine antennas such as wires and poles peeping out the top of trees.  A compact HF active antenna like the Boni -Whip from Bonito, is ideal for the latter and if it can be placed far enough away from a wire antenna the there’s a good chance diversity will bring added gain in certain conditions.

See also how the manual use of diversity tuning for noise reduction can be very powerful: https://sdrplay.com/video-demo-showing-diversity-software-for-noise-reduction/

Today I put up a second vertical antenna, approximately 13m away from my Wellbrook loop  – this equates to roughly a quarter wave of spatial separation for the 49m broadcast band.  I wanted to demonstrate the SDRuno diversity software in action.  There are a lot of fast changing propagation variables at HF, so it’s easier to demonstrate the diversity MRC (signal enhancement) function with a continuous signal from a  broadcast station, rather than hoping an amateur or other comms signal would continue to transmit for long enough to do a comparison.

You can see the noticeable improvement observed: https://youtu.be/GxUOcL8Z0kA

Diversity functionality is described on P.78 of the SDRuno User Manual from which the following is taken:

From V1.32 onwards, MRC (Maximal Ratio Combining) Diversity is supported using the RSPduo. MRC
Diversity can be used to combine the 2 tuner input streams together to potentially improved the SNR
(signal to noise ratio). The same frequency is used for both tuners in the RSPduo and the gain can be
adjusted either on each tuner independently or locked together (the default method).
Diversity mode is enabled by clicking on the RSPduo MODE dropdown and select DIVERSITY. Make sure
both the 50 ohm ports are connected to the correct input source and note that the HiZ port is not available
for Diversity mode. Trying to use the HiZ port will result in an error message being displayed.

Once diversity mode is enabled, the diversity controller window will appear (shown below). This window
shows the current phase and amplitude being applied and the automatic values that are being
continuously calculated and applied (if the APPLY AUTO button is pressed, which is the default mode).
The automatic values have A preceding them in the display.

The automatic mode can be disabled by pressing the APPLY AUTO button and then with the left mouse
button pressed down, select a phase (indicated by the angle in the circle) and an amplitude (indicated by
the length of the line to be applied to the incoming IQ streams.
The result of the combination is sent to the rest of SDRuno as a single IQ stream and so all the post
processing within SDRuno is still fully functional.

It is 5 years ago today that we sold our very first RSP1 – to a customer in Sweden.  Our very first production units were housed in a blue and white box and had an F-type connector:

Many thanks to the thousands of loyal customers who have supported SDRplay ever since that first unit got shipped.

Other news:

Over on the SDRplay forum, there’s an instructional post from RSP2user with useful links for anyone interested in receiving video images from the Es’hail 2 satellite   – see http://www.sdrplay.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4755#p16575

The SDRplay forum is a great place to swap and share ideas and seek help from other users.  Due to ongoing problems including spammers who have become more and more adept at creating fake posts, we now have to moderate all posts. This does mean some delay before your post gets to appear – we do however try to minimise the delay, which can be several hours during UK night times.  Join the forum by going to: https://sdrplay.com/community/

We have also update our SDRuno software roadmap to add a couple of intermediate releases on the way to the next big release which will be Version 1.4:

1.33:
Provide backups of the ini file and a way to restore a specific backup ini file
Additional memory panel columns:
– RF Gain
– IF Gain/AGC enable
– Scanner Threshold
Scanner improvements including:
– A fix for the airband 8.33 frequency rounding error
– Separate (non-memory panel file) lockout file for range scans
– Collect statistics of frequencies in or added to the memory panel
– Use the new memory panel threshold for memory scans
Status bar for better feedback of issue to the user
Improved error handling and reporting
Bugs found in 1.32

1.34:
Improved gain table support to take account of hardware notches
– Will result in improved mil-airband scanner performance
Increase number of zoom levels in SP2 display for close in signal identification
Save VFO in each VRX
Start-up tips
Improved log support – capture commands, results and errors
Bug fixes

1.4:
Plugin support (via documented API)
Remote client support
VFO IQ and audio recording
Automatic LO system (user just sets VFO)

2.0:
Cross platform support (Windows, Linux/x86, MacOS)
Hamlib support for non-Windows platforms
GUI update – ability to lock windows together