Re: [PLUG] Software defined radio

[Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>]

On Fri May 17, 2019 at 7:05 PM Steve Litt wrote:

 I guess I'm weird, but I much prefer receiving distant stations to
> transmitting. Right now I have a shortwave regen I built
> from a kit. It's good, but not that good. Someday I'd like to build an
> SDR (Software defined radio) setup, but to save time and money I'd like
> to follow in somebody else's footsteps.

RTL-SDR dongles can be pretty cheap. You need the dongle, an upconverter
(for listening to low frequency transmissions like the ones you're
after), and an antenna. NooElec has an NESDR kit with everything you
need for listening to this stuff. If you want to save money, buy the
RTL-SDR and the upconverter separately, and build your own antenna out
of spare parts. Double check your angles and lengths when you do.

If you eventually do decide to transmit, you can pop open the dongle and
do some small hacks to get it working.

All of this works with free software. gqrx is the best free software
tool for exploring the spectrum.

> I don't care about digital radio.

There are some cool digital signals, too :) you can also use this setup
to receive downlinks from weather sattelites and get up-to-date photos
of the Earth!
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