Homebrew SDR's

[Trilliumaire]

Wondering if anyone has any experience building SDR's by gathering components and integrating them.

My main components list so far:

Raspberry Pi 5 (4 GB)
Elecrow 5 inch touchscreen
RTL-SDR v4

I was planning to use scanner antenna via the SMA port. Software stack is OP25/boatbod running on the Pi. RF frontend is obviously the RTL. Screen is for pretty waterfalls (bonus) and functionality.

Has anyone dared to take on this project? I saw something similar on a YouTube video ... but thought I'd ask here.

 

[boatbod]

Wondering if anyone has any experience building SDR's by gathering components and integrating them.

My main components list so far:

Raspberry Pi 5 (4 GB)
Elecrow 5 inch touchscreen
RTL-SDR v4

I was planning to use scanner antenna via the SMA port. Software stack is OP25/boatbod running on the Pi. RF frontend is obviously the RTL. Screen is for pretty waterfalls (bonus) and functionality.

Has anyone dared to take on this project? I saw something similar on a YouTube video ... but thought I'd ask here.

Yes, there have been similar projects posted on here previously.

 

[Trilliumaire]

Thanks for responding, I looked at the threads here, and am looking at something particular, like creating a standalone scanner, complete with screen, processor, front-end, etc. Similar to this one:

Looking for general directions to go.

I already have an SDRPlay connected to my Mac, works great, but wanting to make a portable "SDS200/100" type of thing, again standalone, fairly compact, etc. If you could point me to such a thread, that would be awesome.

 

[boatbod]

Honestly I think you can search the forum as easily as I can, but here's one that popped up fairly quickly.

Mobile Pi OP25

Yet another Mobile OP25 build on a PI. I have a 3.5" screen, still playing around with packaging it; I might try to mount the antenna differently or put in a larger enclosure. Created a different css theme to work with the smaller screen size Added functions to Pair Bluetooth, Change Volume...

forums.radioreference.com

If you are going to brew your own solution, be prepared to do some python coding to interface op25 to whatever screen solution you decide on.