Here is a new recording showing an updated Gqrx receiving the FO-29 amateur radio satellite using the Funcube Dongle. Previous recordings used an early version of Gqrx. It was a very quiet pass, most notable thing was probably the Russian and Spanish hams using FM. They probably don’t have a clue that their signal comes over a satellite transponder. Another video recording focusing on the FM transmissions during this FO-29 pass is available here.
APRS reception with Gqrx and Funcube Dongle
I don’t think I ever posted a video showing the built-in AFSK1200 demodulator and decoder in Gqrx, so here it is. The video show local APRS traffic in Copenhagen on a Sunday afternoon. I also tried to receive from the ISS but nothing heard this time.
Broadcast FM reception with Gqrx and Funcube Dongle
Here is a short demo showing how to receive broadcast FM with Gqrx. This demo uses the Funcube Dongle, which is really not suited for broadcast FM reception. Gqrx does not employ any tricks to make it sound like it works properly – it just does straightforward FM demodulation with wide FM parameters and you will hear the lack of sufficient bandwidth as distortion on some stations (not all though).
Fun with the Funcube Dongle
I was playing with my Funcube Dongle last Saturday testing Gqrx for the long awaited 2.0 release. I was using the Funcube Dongle together with the shortwave converter I got some time ago and a 5 meter long wire attached via an antenna tuner. Amongst all the traffic there is on shortwaves I recorded these two transmissions: UVB-76 aka. The Buzzer, and whistle like signal believed to be a radar in Israel.
Qthid 3.1 packages for Debian and Ubuntu Linux
I just noticed today that the latest release of Qthid is available as Debian packages for Debian wheezy (testing) and sid (unstable). As a bonus it contains both Qthid 3.1 and 2.2 so you can easily upgrade the firmware of your brand new Funcube Dongle. It also contains all the necessary setup files and procedures … Read more
EzTV666 DVB-T dongle on the air
Last week I have tested the RTL2832U-based ezcap EzTV666 DVB-T dongle on the air using various VHF signal.
RTL2832U based software defined radios
RTL2832U-based DVB-T dongles are now supported by Gqrx SDR, see this announcement!
You may have noticed the recent buzz on the internet about using cheap DVB-T dongles as software defined radio receivers. It all started on this mailing list when V4L/DVB kernel developer Antti Palosaari discovered that the ezcap EzTV 668 DVB-T/FM/DAB USB dongle, which is based on the RTL2832U chip, can be used to stream raw I/Q samples to the host computer. It is in fact the way the device supports FM and DAB reception; raw I/Q is sent to the host where the application does the demodulation.
Gqrx and Pulseaudio
Just a quick note that Gqrx now uses pulseaudio for all audio I/O, which includes I/Q input from the Funcube Dongle.
Funcube Dongle support now built into GNU Radio
I am happy to inform all users of the Funcube Dongle and GNU Radio, that the gr-fcd driver is now included in the GNU Radio source tree. You can read the announcement here. This change will be available in the next GNU Radio release, which I think will be 3.5.3, however, if you pull the … Read more
Daily Gpredict builds for Ubuntu
Thanks to Jan Simon, DL2ZXA, we now have daily builds of Gpredict for Ubuntu 10.04 – 12.04, both 32 and 64 bit. Jan’s recipe fetches the code imported from SourceForge, merges it with the translations done in the Launchpad, then builds the packages and puts them in the Gpredict teams Daily builds PPA. You can … Read more