Software that will use an Airspy mini / Windows to provide a multi-channel conventional feed to RR ?

[mtindor]

Silly question -- I say that because i'm pretty sure this can be done fairly easily. But I've only streamed trunked systems using a scanner or SDRTrunk or Trunk-Recorder.

Windows 11
Airspy Mini

Want to be able to stream some local amateur radio repeaters to RR for my county. Need to be able to do this on windows and use my Airspy mini to do it.

Can anybody recommend an appropriate software package? No linux, no Rasberry PIs. My remote monitoring location has a Windows 11 PC. So I will need to do this on Windows, not Linux.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Mike

 

[Forts]

SDR Console supports multi VFO I believe. Might want to check out www.sdrpp.org as well.

 

[Lexmm]

You can use SDRTrunk combined with Trunking Recorder on Windows 11 with the Airspy Mini to do what you want. Although I am not streaming to Broadcastify, I am able to receive 20 or more conventional analog and P25 frequencies simultaneously using an Airspy Mini.

 

[mtindor]

You can use SDRTrunk combined with Trunking Recorder on Windows 11 with the Airspy Mini to do what you want. Although I am not streaming to Broadcastify, I am able to receive 20 or more conventional analog and P25 frequencies simultaneously using an Airspy Mini.

Very nice. Thanks. I did notice the NBFM decoder in SDRTrunk. Already using SDRTrunk with an Airspy R2 on same machine. I did add two amateur radio VHF freqs (separate NBFM decoders, because I think you can only have one freq per decoder). I think I could stream one freq per feed to RR with SDRTrunk. But I think if I want 3-4 VHF amateur radio freqs and create 4 NBFM decoders, they would all then have to be directed to totally separate feeds at RR (which isn't what I want). I'm wanting 4 freqs into one feed.

I'm going to play around. Appreciate the help. I have no intention on adding Trunk Recorder as another bulky layer though. So I may end up just feeding one repeater via one NBFM instance in SDRTrunk.

Mike

 

[GTR8000]

With the latest beta versions of SDRTrunk, NBFM is available. You create one NBFM "channel" per frequency, assign them all to the same alias list "Ham" or whatever. You then create virtual "talkgroups" in that alias list for each frequency being monitored. Once you apply for and are approved for a BCFY feed, you sign into SDRTrunk with your RR credentials, go to the Streaming tab, select your BCFY feed, then add those aliases to the feed. They can all be streamed to a single feed.

Just note that as the Mini is going to presumably cover the entire 2m spectrum, it will decode each frequency simultaneously and will queue up each transmission to the feed. This can be especially troublesome with ham repeaters when guys are longwinded and/or the carrier doesn't drop for a long time. If you have 3-4 repeaters that are pretty active simultaneously, you could wind up not hearing a transmission on the feed until 10-15 minutes after the fact. There is a max recording age parameter that basically discards any recordings that are older than X seconds/minutes.

Of course if you're familiar with SDRTrunk and streaming to Calls modes, you know that it's not in real time anyway. The software waits until the recording is complete before pushing it to the BCFY servers. The same is true with a traditional feed, and so an uninterrupted transmission of 10 minutes is not going to hit the BCFY server until the carrier drops and the recording is complete ~10 minutes after the transmission started.

tl;dr This method might not be ideal for what you're planning to stream

 

[mtindor]

With the latest beta versions of SDRTrunk, NBFM is available. You create one NBFM "channel" per frequency, assign them all to the same alias list "Ham" or whatever. You then create virtual "talkgroups" in that alias list for each frequency being monitored. Once you apply for and are approved for a BCFY feed, you sign into SDRTrunk with your RR credentials, go to the Streaming tab, select your BCFY feed, then add those aliases to the feed. They can all be streamed to a single feed.

Just note that as the Mini is going to presumably cover the entire 2m spectrum, it will decode each frequency simultaneously and will queue up each transmission to the feed. This can be especially troublesome with ham repeaters when guys are longwinded and/or the carrier doesn't drop for a long time. If you have 3-4 repeaters that are pretty active simultaneously, you could wind up not hearing a transmission on the feed until 10-15 minutes after the fact. There is a max recording age parameter that basically discards any recordings that are older than X seconds/minutes.

Of course if you're familiar with SDRTrunk and streaming to Calls modes, you know that it's not in real time anyway. The software waits until the recording is complete before pushing it to the BCFY servers. The same is true with a traditional feed, and so an uninterrupted transmission of 10 minutes is not going to hit the BCFY server until the carrier drops and the recording is complete ~10 minutes after the transmission started.

tl;dr This method might not be ideal for what you're planning to stream

Thanks, Chief. Well, it's the best option for me since I am adamant about using Windows. i did not know you can do what you described, so that's very helpful. I don't anticipate it being a problem since the likelihood of more than one of the four repeaters being active at the same time is extremely slim here in the Steubenville-Weirton area. They have a net on one repeater one day, a net on another repeater on another day, the third repeater is likely only used privately even though it is an open repeater. And then the last freq is a simplex freq for a simplex net they hold on yet another day. Only one repeater would likely ever be in use outside of the nets.

I'll give it a try!