SDR (Software Defined Radio) For Satellite

[rv1pop]

My antenna is a hexagon single loop, 530 feet long. That is 88 feet on each (of the six) sides. I do have a little more room than most - and when I get a chance I will add a second loop in another direction. Oh and I do have the 1965 foot "L" long wire, 1350 feet North to South and 615 feet from West to East: the upper wire of my fence. I do not have it insulated from the posts. But I do not yet have the SDR, although that should be long enough for AM band reception.

 

[northgeorgia]

My antenna is a hexagon single loop, 530 feet long. That is 88 feet on each (of the six) sides. I do have a little more room than most - and when I get a chance I will add a second loop in another direction. Oh and I do have the 1965 foot "L" long wire, 1350 feet North to South and 615 feet from West to East: the upper wire of my fence. I do not have it insulated from the posts. But I do not yet have the SDR, although that should be long enough for AM band reception.

You must get LW and MW broadcasts from Polynesia with that!

 

[Balock]

I wish I had as much room as Pop!

I've seen some information on building and using magnetic loop antennas that looks interesting. If I understand correctly (and I haven't read in-depth yet), one would be a little smaller than 1/4 wavelength for the lowest band you want to receive. Here's one site I've come across: http://www.standpipe.com/w2bri/

I spent time what little slack time I had today from work tuned to HF (mainly just below 22MHz and also in the 17Mhz and 13MHz range), decoding HF ACARS data. I was picking up ground stations in NY, MD and CA as well as planes across the US, just north of Canada and down into South America! Not too bad considering my rotatable dipole is sitting only 6 inches above the ground right now I've also spent some time over the weekend listening to shortwave broadcasts and listened to some of the Canada Winter Contest on the ham bands. Don't have my HF rigs hooked up right now so couldn't join in on the fun.

 

[jmc98]

Which voltage blocking splitter are people using for using sdr at the satellite dish ?

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[Santa Clause]

Last night I heard what I first thought was a passenger jet flying way too low over the house, turns out it was a gas pipeline venting. I live about 5 or 6 miles from the pumping station but man that thing was loud. I was using the SDR at the time so I quickly tuned to the local sheriff and state police frequencies and figured out what was going on. I really like how you can view 2mhz of frequencies in the spectrum using SDR Console v2.0. To anyone interested in the pipeline story, here it is.

 

[Titanium]

The voltage blocking Splitter is a 2x1, 2400Mhz, 1 port power passing (careful if using diode steered that the voltage passes from out to in).

 

[skysurfer]

first, news. I received a email from ebay that the Ham-it-up was on sale for 5% off. I checked and it was (but it's only $2 savings). Considering I don't have any SMA adapters to enjoy the ham-it-up right away, I passed because of the lack of adapters in my possession right now and the fact it's only $2 discount. Check Nooelec's ebay seller page as that offer may be good to any ebay user for the next day or two, not just for those like me that received an email alert possibly because of my recent dongle purchase.

now a question (and I don't want the answer to be 'that's what a DVB PCI card is for!'). My adapter to use the dongle with my satellite system will be here in a few days so I'll be able to investigate those many VSAT like carriers to see if any happen to be decodable audio services. I was thinking if I came across a DVB-S/S2 signal that might be SR 700, would I be able to use SDRSHARP to select the center frequency and stream it on my 127.0.0.1 port (xxxxx) to some DVB-S/S2 app that would take that stream from over the network and tune it and display it? I know it's easy-peasy with a DVB-S/S2 PCI card and tuner/display software that comes with the card, but I wonder if it can be done with the dongle in place of a PCI tuner card for those less than 6 MHz wide DVB-S/S2 carriers.

 

[stonemountain]

Have run across numerous beacons, a few analog audio subcarriers services are still in use and a few private voice communications.

Can you detail what analog audio subcarriers you have found -- what satellites and frequencies? Are these SCPC?

 

[skysurfer]

the only analog subcarrier audios I can think of left are on Shepherd's Chapel (G16/16 c-band) and the Weather Channel (AMC-11). You'll need a ham-it-up upconverter for those since they are below the 24 MHz low frequency of a standard dongle.

 

[Titanium]

Found a few narrow FM audio services on one of the C-band SatMex sats. Beacons and CW on many satellites and tons of carriers with digital data. Didn't pay to much attention to the frequencies or modes as I was just tuning around with the spectrum display and clicking on signal spikes. Tuned within the IF range of the LNBF.

 

[Babadem]

I just ordered a unit. It should be coming in next week. That will give me sometime to read up on this thread.

 

[johnstanko]

has anyone done any more sdr research?

seems like interest in sdr experimenting has stopped on this

thread. how are you doing scott?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I got to be honest, I haven't had time to play with mine since I got back from CES.

I really need to put up a good antenna outside as I want to use mine for Shortwave and AM DXing.

 

[Stargazer]

I've been so busy working among other things that I have not had time to do anymore SDR or FTA things for a while. I hope I get some time free'd up eventually. I think some members on here should make their SDR's available to the public to tinker with. I wonder if that is allowed for transmitting?

 

[N5XZS]

Is there SDR that can go up at least 3GHz? Reason why I want to get local news feeds on 2.7 GHz band since they use COFDM modes. Here in Albuquerque we are spoiled with a very tall Sandia Crest mountain with antenna farm!

Thanks!

 

[updatelee]

usrp has boards that support that high, bladeRF does as well.

UDL

 

[Titanium]

Is there SDR that can go up at least 3GHz?

Had you considered an S-band LNBF? This would down-convert the 2.2 - 2.7GHz band to 950 - 1150MHz with a LO of 3650MHz.

 

[DJ Rob]

Glad you guys are taking about SDR. I've been messing around with it for the past couple of years. I'll attach a pic of what I have so far hardware-wise. I find that the Terratec works better for the Ham It Up. It seems to not let strong signals overload it and has better ears for the frequencies the Ham It Up downconverts to. I haven't messed with Sat signals yet, but it's on my list.

 

[cypherstream]

Are there any solutions to stream and control SDR# over my home network? Would love an iPhone or iPad front end where I could use this anywhere in the home. Would just talk over wifi to the computer running the software.

 

[Cosmo Blatz]

Just purchased a NooElec R820T2 dongle. I'm running the SDRSharp software. Just hooked up the dongle last night. Haven't done much exploring yet. I tested the setup on the standard wideband FM stations. There are dropouts in the FM audio and the display video is sometimes slow to react to mouse movements. I'm guessing my old laptop doesn't have the 'horsepower' for the software. Is my theory correct about the laptop? Any other software that might work better with my current computer?

Laptop Specs:
2.2 GHz Intel dual core
64k primary cache
2048k secondary cache
3964 Megs useable memory
(Win 7 Home Premium)