Amateur radio, space technology and other geeky stuff by Alexandru Csete
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:
The Universal Hardware Driver (UHD) for the USRP contains a cool example program that can draw spectrum scope using simple ASCII art. This video shows reception of 8 MHz wide spectrum slices in the broadcast FM band 88 – 108 MHz.
Few days ago I learned about the Quisk software defined radio application for Linux. It is written by James Ahlstrom N2ADR with contributions from other radio amateurs around the world. A quick glance at the home page and the documentation suggested that it is a rather simple application where it is easy to add support for other hardware.
Just a quick note that I have successfully installed the Universal Hardware Driver (UHD) for the USRP. The UHD is the next generation hardware driver for the USRP family hardware from Ettus Research and it provides better hardware abstraction and portability as the current drivers. I already tried to make the switch few weeks ago … Read more