Starting out with SDR

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brushedred

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Hello everyone,
Fairly inexperienced here but I have always had an interest in radio.

I'm looking at purchasing an NooElec RTL2832U + R820T
I have a few different success stories regarding trunking and the Unitrunker / SDR#

My question: will I have enough success with purchasing a single unit or would you recommend purchasing two?
 

deboe

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If you want to trunk track with unitrunker get 2 of them.
They are selling a new RTL2832U2 I am not sure the #2 is supported by UT so I wold stick to the units that are not the model 2.

I run 2 RTL2832U + R820T's here to monitor a Moto Type IIi system and at my old house a P25 system.
 

joeuser

The Wretched
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Hello everyone,
Fairly inexperienced here but I have always had an interest in radio.

I'm looking at purchasing an NooElec RTL2832U + R820T
I have a few different success stories regarding trunking and the Unitrunker / SDR#

My question: will I have enough success with purchasing a single unit or would you recommend purchasing two?

To add to the above reply, if you just plan to monitor conventional radio, one will work. I suggest SDR# for that. If you want to do trunking systems, goto UniTrunker website & make sure to get dongles it supports, this way you can just run UniTrunker & avoid SDR#.

I use & love my dongles with just UT. I listen to a P25p1 system.
 

brushedred

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Thanks for the help so far,
I purchased two and have been playing around with SDR# and unitrunker a touch. - Struggled through the installation steps I've found from various walkthroughs but I think I managed to get it.

Now just to narrow down the control channel for my local police department which doesn't appear to be where it says it is

I have managed to find various parts of calls bouncing around just in SDR but can't grab a control in untrunker.

Extremely new to all of this.
 

brushedred

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I'm trying to monitor a EDACS Standard system SID = 1328

Pardon my limited knowledge of this so far - from my understanding I should be looking for a control channel at 866.03750 but can't see one nor on any other's listed.

Once I can at least find it then i'll attempt to set up my second dongle to follow the voice.

All the help is much appreciated.
 

RonnieUSA

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Rowan County,KY (Morehead)
I'm trying to monitor a EDACS Standard system SID = 1328

Pardon my limited knowledge of this so far - from my understanding I should be looking for a control channel at 866.03750 but can't see one nor on any other's listed.

Once I can at least find it then i'll attempt to set up my second dongle to follow the voice.

All the help is much appreciated.

What is the name of the police department your trying to listen to?
Also it would help to know where your from.
 

SCPD

QRT
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Virginia
None of the channels are marked as control channels.

You will have to try all 20 to find out which is the active control channel.

Please submit what you find so we can update the RR DB.

Quickest approach is to download the frequencies from the RR DB. Create a blank EDACS system and set it's RR DB SID to 1328. Click the download tool. That will load talkgroups, one site, and 20 channels.

Go to your signal receiver window. Start your signal reciever. It should indicate as "Running". Give the RTL stick time to warm up. I assume you've already calibrated your RTL stick.

From the reciever window, click on the "Pick Site" tool button.

In the Pick Site dialog, make sure "EDACS96" is selected. Check the box to include voice channels. Select the Edmonton system, then select site 1. In the channel selection combo box, select each channel one by one. The site window will appear with the first channel selected.

Pause for a few seconds on each channel. With a good signal, the health field will display a decode rate and the Protocol field should say "EDACS96". If it doesn't keep moving.

Another approach is to view the 866-869 spectrum in SDR# and look for a solid (not dotted or broken) vertical streak in the waterfall that suggests the continuous broadcast of a control channel. Match that to one of the frequencies in the RR DB. Double-check the signal receiver's calibration.

If the control channel ever rotates to a different frequency - you will have to repeat some of the steps above.
 

brushedred

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I have tried to select the site and scroll through each channel to try locate the control as Unitrunker suggested with no luck.

I have found various control channels within that spectrum one of which matched the system was very strong and pulled in the same 20 channels the system I am searching for in has but does not load any other frequencies and the frequency in which the control i found is does not match that of the site i'm looking to monitor.

I'm a little lost at this point.
 

SCPD

QRT
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Red;

Let's run with that.

What is the site number, control channel number and frequency of the site you found?
 

brushedred

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Hi Unitrunker
Sorry for the dely, Just had a chance to take another look

The control channels I find in that range tend to change from day to do.

Today here is what I found:

Frequency: 865.9675
When running in Unitrunker it finds:

Site 1
EDACS96 C Limbo
LCN 1 through 20

That frequency is showing in red at LCN 1 with various other LCN's showing values in the target / source but not loading any other frequencies they are all zero.

This is the same site I have managed to find on other days each day a different frequency showing up on another LCN usually between 4 and 1 however.

Hopefully this information helps and again I can't thank you enough for helping out a complete newbie to this.
 

moonbounce

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Nov 5, 2002
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Hello everyone,
Fairly inexperienced here but I have always had an interest in radio.

I'm looking at purchasing an NooElec RTL2832U + R820T
I have a few different success stories regarding trunking and the Unitrunker / SDR#

My question: will I have enough success with purchasing a single unit or would you recommend purchasing two?

I have both an r820t 2832u and an r820t 2832u2 both will work with Unitrunker. I have found that you need a powerful computer if you are going to run multiple programs at the same time like DSD, SDR, VB Cable and Unitrunker. I have a laptop with a 2.2 Ghz dual processor with 2GB of Ram and it can't handle the above, just an fyi.

Also with Unitrunker you really need a strong CC and you won't know that until you get everything set up, again just an fyi.

MB
 

SCPD

QRT
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Location
Virginia
I have both an r820t 2832u and an r820t 2832u2 both will work with Unitrunker.
Just to clarify moonbounce's post above ... there is no RTL2832U2. I think moonbounce (and also deboe) are referring to the R820T2 tuner chip - which has been confirmed as working.
 

SCPD

QRT
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Location
Virginia
Frequency: 865.9675

I'm not aware of any trunking between 861 and 866 Mhz. The signal above must be an image.

Try lowering your gain (use the waterfall display in SDR# to find a balanced setting) to reduce any spurs.

Search 866 to 869 Mhz for the Edmonton site.

Oh ... wait. If LCN 1 on the Edmonton site is 866.0375 ... you're off by about 81 parts per million.

The crystal clocks in these RTL sticks are not very accurate. Relatively stable once warmed up but not accurate - so you have to measure the error and compensate for it by specifying a correction value in software.

If your RTL stick's correction factor is set to 0 - try setting it to 81.

Quick math check: 866.0375 - 865.9675 = 70 khz.

70 khz / 866 Mhz is roughly 81 parts per million.
 

brushedred

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Hi Unitrunker,
Well it looks like the solution was allot simpler than I thought.
I had been setting my PPM completely wrong - I even went so far as to download a utility to check against GSM sites and both came back with a negative value. I kept thinking it was something along the lines of what frequency it says i'm on isn't actually correct.

When I have some time again i'll go through and set up my second receiver and try get the whole thing working. I have installed DSD but have some worries it did not go as was supposed to so i'll give that a shot again as well.

Thanks for the help so far !
 

brushedred

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Okay small update and yet another question.

I managed to get everything up and running within unitrunker which is very nice not having to tie in SDR# etc.
with both receivers up and running i'm able to follow voice with no problems.(I'll fiddle and mute the roadworks chatter Yawn..)

The problem I seem to have now is i'm able to listen no issues then the control channel switched from EDACS96 to Provoice and the everything goes static.

Generally if I re pick the site and select that same control it will go back to EDACS sometimes after a restart.
Do you know of any reason this would happen and how to rectify it?

Thanks guys!
 

marksmith

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Are you using an offset value in unitrunker equal to the variance you find using the sharp radio?.

In order for the above procedures to work you will need to determine the ppm offset of your dongle, otherwise you will not tune the correct frequency in unitrunker.

Set the frequency to a known strong control channel in sharp. Open the gear at top and change the ppm value until you hear the unmistakable sound of a control channel. Note that value and enter it into the offset field in unitrunker receiver. Turn the sharp radio off. Start unitrunker. Now unitrunker will use that offser for the dongle to properly tune the frequencies you enter in the receiver.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T
 

brushedred

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Hi Mark,
Thanks for the tips as well and everyone in this thread.

Everything is up and running smoothly.

For a rather tech savvy person this was quite the learning experience and turned out too be allot more confusing than I expected.

I was very glad to discover these dongles and the free software to run them. A every inexpensive way to start.

Again thanks for all the help!
 
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