Software Defined Radio (SDR), what are you doing with it?

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Software Defined Radio (SDR), what are you doing with it?

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#2458378 9-Apr-2020 14:20

Stu:
Not sure how deep this will go. Haven't ordered the RPi yet though, as I'll try and use one of the Odroid boards I have here.. somewhere..

Be interesting to hear about your experiences running something like Flightaware on an Odroid, it'd be nice to be able to run it on a platform that doesn't s**t itself several times and year like the Pi's do.

neb

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#2458379 9-Apr-2020 14:21

MattR:
I've been doing ADS-B since 2015. Currently using the Flightaware pro stick plus and antenna, but did make my own collinear antenna out of RG-6.

Wow, you get good coverage! I'm on the upper harbour with hills on 2 - 3 sides so only get the high-altitude stuff.

neb

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#2458380 9-Apr-2020 14:23

shanes:
Not that there is much to track these days...

Yeah, it came up in the data analysis thread, you can really see the dropoff in traffic.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2458381 9-Apr-2020 14:23

neb: Be interesting to hear about your experiences running something like Flightaware on an Odroid, it'd be nice to be able to run it on a platform that doesn't s**t itself several times and year like the Pi's do.

That hasn't been my experience. I've only shutdown PiAware for maintenance, either on the network or to upgrade the software.

Flight Aware uptime: "Longest Streak: 1457 days (14/4/2016 - 9/4/2020)"

MattR

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#2458384 9-Apr-2020 14:26

neb:
MattR:

I've been doing ADS-B since 2015. Currently using the Flightaware pro stick plus and antenna, but did make my own collinear antenna out of RG-6.

Wow, you get good coverage! I'm on the upper harbour with hills on 2 - 3 sides so only get the high-altitude stuff.

I'm in Torbay on the north side of a hill. Nice view to the north-east. The Flightaware antenna and stick are amazingly good.

Anybody know how to remove corruption from the VRS database? I've got a couple of spikes that go west all the way past africa (suspect prime meridian)

MattR

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#2458386 9-Apr-2020 14:30

SirHumphreyAppleby:

neb: Be interesting to hear about your experiences running something like Flightaware on an Odroid, it'd be nice to be able to run it on a platform that doesn't s**t itself several times and year like the Pi's do.

That hasn't been my experience. I've only shutdown PiAware for maintenance, either on the network or to upgrade the software.

Flight Aware uptime: "Longest Streak: 1457 days (14/4/2016 - 9/4/2020)"

I'm using RPi2 powered via one of those PoE to Micro USB splitters from AliExpress. It's been sitting out on the roof for 3+ years now without needing to be touched.

I can't see any reason why installing the piaware repo (not the OS) on an ODroid wouldn't work. Flightaware have supported that since 2014.

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neb

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#2458398 9-Apr-2020 14:41

MattR:
I'm using RPi2 powered via one of those PoE to Micro USB splitters from AliExpress. It's been sitting out on the roof for 3+ years now without needing to be touched.

I have a bunch of Pi-based stuff, different hardware, different power feeds, different SD cards, and every one of them has bricked itself at least once (requiring a rebuild/reflash), and all of them lock up or crash in some way at least once, typically several times a year, requiring power cycling which is a pain when they're in inaccessible locations. It's just a really poor design, if you look at the electronics it's like a student project copied from various vendor data sheets. So both the bad design and ongoing problems with them have left me somewhat poorly disposed towards anything Pi-based. The Odroids OTOH just work, you can plug things like an SDR into it without needing an external powered hub and then inadvertently back-powering the Pi via its USB ports (!!), and they never seem to lock up or crash. The only downside is that they have uniformly awful cases that look like they were 3D-printed in about ten minutes, unlike the nice integrated-heatsink alu cases you can get for the Pi's.

Stu

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#2458530 9-Apr-2020 16:34

neb: Be interesting to hear about your experiences running something like Flightaware on an Odroid, it'd be nice to be able to run it on a platform that doesn't s**t itself several times and year like the Pi's do.

I never got around to powering up the ODroid board. I had a feeling things would go pair-shaped, so put in an order for an RPi just in case. It arrived prior to the Level 4 lockdown was imposed, but SWMBO has taken over the office for work (essential service, I'm not), so nothing has happened with it so far. It's on the To Do list.

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#2458567 9-Apr-2020 17:28

Have to agree, been running Raspberry pi's on 8 metre poles on the roof for years, never had any problems with them, even during power outages etc. They've all run stable as.

MattR

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#2458620 9-Apr-2020 19:33

I've found most of the RPi problems are due to the power supply being used. I've been using the official one or the PoE splitters and never had a problem.

msukiwi

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#2523603 15-Jul-2020 16:52

I have a question:

With Win10 continually changing the order of input and output devices, has anyone found an easy way of replacing the following command line to pick the same named output?

FMP24 -i"00000006" -o8 -f123.455 -g0 -b9.5 -n0 -v80

Replacing the "-o8" with "'Line 2 (Virtual Audio Cable)'" as an example?

I managed to get the input to pick a specific SDR by serial number, but I can't seem to work out the output.

It changes the audio output device numbering on every reboot!

I have tried many options.

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#3440226 4-Dec-2025 15:26

I wanted to store the below link somewhere useful. I bricked one of my SDRs, I think maybe a power issue or something messed it up then trying to fix it I messed up the EEPROM.

Anyway, I tried a few things but found the steps in this comment by "RJ" worked perfectly.

I bricked one and managed to recover it without recompiling anything. My VID had changed to DAFF and PID remained 2838. I used a hex editor to modify librtlsdr.dll.
1. Make a backup of librtlsdr.dll
2. Use Zadig to force the driver on the dongle
3. Use Device manager to get your VID and PID of the damaged dongle.
4. From the rtl_eeprom folder, load librtlsdr.dll
5. Around byte F600 you will find an array of VID-PID combinations The second one being DA 0B 38 28. This matches VID 0BDA and PID 2838 which is a generic RTL2832U OEM
6. In my case I changed the DA OB to FF DA and left the 32 28 in place and saved the file.
7. rtl_eeprom now recognized my device and allowed me to write it with the -g command.
8. Use the backup copy of the dll file to restore it.

scottjpalmer

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#3440228 4-Dec-2025 15:31

What else is happening in SDR land?

I still feed ADS-B data to Flightradar24, FlightAware and ADS-B Exchange

I feed weather radiosonde data to https://sondehub.org

I have an interest in mapping out DMR (Tier II and Tier III), P25 and other digital radio networks.

Great little gadgets!

ZL2DanF

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#3440276 4-Dec-2025 19:42

I started mucking around with SDR back in 2019 when FlightAware sent me one of their ADSB kits.

Back in 2022 I installed a RaspPi3 SDR USB stick & External Antenna to Crater Hill Repeater site overlooking Scott Base only for their IT Manager to fly down at the start of the new season to supply FR24 & FlightAware provided gear. The supplied gear went in & my RaspPi I was intending to donate ended coming home with me. My understanding the supplied FR24 & FA gear is still working away happily down there providing coverage of about 100 or so nautical miles

More recently, ive got 2x RaspPis in a rack mount kit each with their own RTL-SDR Blog V3 R860 RTL2832U usb stick

1x RaspPi/Stick dedicated to ADSB – Feeding to the usuals (FlightAware, FlightRadar24 etc)
1x RaspPi/Stick dedicated to Marine AIS – Feeding vessel locations to MarineTraffic.com, VesselFinder.com & ShipExplorer.com

Each SDR USB stick is connected to their own external antenna by cnt240 50ohm cable
Working out so far so good – hoping to add some filtering soon to hopefully tidy up and increase receive sensitivity. The sticks tend to get hot, so have a small fan sitting on rack providing some air movement – long term, ill need to look at something more permanent/elegant – Ive also found out the hard way to get decent industrial microSD cards as the RaspPis tend to chew through the cheaper ones after a while

In the rack mount kit, I have 2x spare RaspPi slots so busy thinking up my next idea – maybe weather or go down the Ham/HF/Amateur rabbit hole…not sure yet, open to ideas/suggestions

Cheers,
DanF

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#3440285 4-Dec-2025 19:58

Those seasonal and then fulltime receivers down there are appreciated.

We can keep an eye on C17 and LC130 movements for rough airport visit well in advance later.

Believe they've sent more down since to cover toll station too.

There's a new bundle project adsb.im that relies on containers and web configuration which is popular. Pick and choose your aggregation and very little SD writes. All in virtual/tempfs.

I still use one for flex/pocsag on a Pi. But it's an original TV one so has drift that needs PPM calibration all the time

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