3x SDRs with DSD+

[EarHoles]

Just curious if its possible to use 3 rtlSDR dongles with DSD+ when trucking and if there would be advantage when doing so?
Got a spare one now is why im asking.

 

[LimaZulu]

The higher the count, the more frequencies you monitor at once My current setup is with 3 dongles - 2 for trunking and 1 for other stuff
But you have to think about listening them also, like, imagine that all 3 of them monitor different freqiencies, and all 3 of them are active at the same time. It will be a total mess. What I did is to separete the audio and trunking comes out of my left channel and the other sdr goes to my right channel. Anything beyond that is a mess if we are talking abut live listening. But You can always run some audio servers, like RadioFeed for example, and route each sdr audio output to it and connect to the one you want to listen to.

 

[AB9NN]

How would you code for the third dongle for more frequencies? I scan for more frequencies. I use my third one for HF along with a SpyVerter and a 9:1 balun and a wire antenna. I think SDRTrunk will automatically use the third one, but for DSD+ I use bat files that specifically assign dongle numbers (1 is HF, 2 is tune FMP, 3 is DSD+ FastLane). In a bat file - how would you code for the third dongle? The three dongles usually play very nicely with each other once you get the dongle numbers correct on my gear.

 

[cg]

Simply create another folder and run a separate instance of FMP24 and DSDPlus. I routinely run 2 separate trunking sites involving 4 SDRs and 2 DSDPlus folders.
The down side is that all the files remain separate so radios and talkgroups found on one system don't populate into the other set of folders.

chris

 

[AB9NN]

Thank you for the clarification. That is what I figured but wondered if you had some other magic up your sleeve! smile... I had read that the newer version of DSD+ Fast Lane doesn't require separate folders any more...

 

[phyberoptics]

Is a separate folder absolutely required? Is it not possible to just change the TCP ports for the 2nd instance?
I've used 2 sticks to track a trunk system, then a 3rd stick to monitor another control channel without the voice option without any issue so far...

Wondering if you've tried it all from one folder?

 

[slicerwizard]

Is a separate folder absolutely required? Is it not possible to just change the TCP ports for the 2nd instance?
I've used 2 sticks to track a trunk system, then a 3rd stick to monitor another control channel without the voice option without any issue so far...

Wondering if you've tried it all from one folder?

Trunk tracking two systems/sites (with four dongles) using a single folder won't work. There is no way to separate the voice tuning steering data.

 

[M105]

I use 3 dongles for trunking two different systems. One system is P25 while the other is NXDN. One dongle per control channel with the third dongle serving as the voice channel. Whichever control channel that becomes active first writes the file that the VC copy uses for tuning. It works much like a scanner in that the first active signal is what goes over the speaker. I also have a 4th dongle that is tuned using FMP24 to the local weather radio frequency and provides a feed (using RadioFeed) to my weather web site. All of the above is running in one folder.

 

[slicerwizard]

Like I said, you can't control two VC processes in a single folder.

 

[hamradionl]

Hi for DMR only i run
6x hardware RTL-SDR V3
6x SDR# + DsDplus tcp plugin
Installed SDR# + DsDplus in 6x separate folders.
SDR-DMR-1, SDR-DMR-2, SDR-DMR-3 etc etc
Folder structure
C:\SDR-DMR-1\dsd\
C:\SDR-DMR-2\dsd\
SDR# Scanner plugin to scan channels
CAI TV satellite antenna coupler to 3000 MHz to connect RTL-SDR hardware to antenna
Works good for about 14 months

 

[hrh17]

Currently monitoring running 5 sites with 5 different dongles and 1 for voice monitoring. The latest dsdfl allows for multiple instances of dsdplus run from the same folder.

 

[phyberoptics]

Trunk tracking two systems/sites (with four dongles) using a single folder won't work. There is no way to separate the voice tuning steering data.

If you put that data out via the TCP port, it would solve that issue, and would also allow for remote instances as well...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TheButcher]

Instead of scanning for new frequencies with FMP24, why not use SDR# ? Then just click on any signals that look interesting. Also, SDR# and DSD+ don't play nice together and will crash the dongles (if trynig to use the same dongle). Run them both at separate times and not at the same time. I like to part audio from SDR# to DSD+ using a virtual audio cable for snooping.

Download


And you need Zadig drivers to go with it...

Zadig - USB driver installation made easy


Oh and remember to read the readme file. That is why the author put it there for. I hope this helps...

 

[AB9NN]

These are known frequencies. I have, for example, one dongle scanning aircraft and a local amusement while another dongle scans known police, fire, ambulance, etc... I use SDR# extensively as well as SDR Console. Love both of them. DSD+ and SDR Trunk handle my digital decodes like P25, NXDN, etc.. Since I was doing some configuration work to get that piece of my radio room running I wanted to learn what the capabilities were for the scanning of conventional frequencies was. I have been quite pleased as FMP24 scanner is more well behaved than ever anticipated! I like the ability to quickly modify the scan list by just copying in large chunks of frequencies, modes and descriptors. It plays very nicely with SDR Console running HF on the third dongle backed by SpyVerter. In a couple of days I've only had one lock-up and that was probably a resource starved machine as I am editing a large batch of digital photographs and hard drive space remaining and fragmentation are likely issues as well. At least they were at that time. Love to explore and learn...

 

[dave3825]

Also, SDR# and DSD+ don't play nice together and will crash the dongles (if trying to use the same dongle).

What dongle is that? I never had a dongle crash while using sdr and dsd. Just curious.

I have been quite pleased as FMP24 scanner is more well behaved than ever anticipated!

For miscellaneous conventional scanning, I use sdr# with the frequency manager plugin , and dsdplus. Scans whatever is in its list and if digital is decoded, its sent to dsd and plays the decoded audio. Analog and digital scanner all in one.



* Freq manager, lets you create groups and populate them with freqs. Awesome plug in...

 

[AB9NN]

Got it. I fiddled with the DSD+ plugin for SDR# for some time and never did get it to work correctly. Someone in a help forum suggested going the FMP24 ---> DSD+ Fast Lane route so I did that and got it working. Maybe if I go back and re-address the issue thing would work out better now that understand things a bit better.

 

[redbeard]

I'm not doing any voice following, but running 4 dongles and DSD+ in CC mode watching 4 trunk systems and sharing the files. I just use the -F switch and increment the port number used between FMP & DSD. For example here is the line to start the 3rd instance of FMP24/DSD+:

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Starting FMP24 and DSD+
START FMP24 -i3 -P0.5 -_1 -f773.95625 -o20002 -g28 -b9 -z0 -s0 -t1
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK
START DSDPlus -F3 -_3 -O NUL -f1 -i20002 -v0 >>NUL
EXIT

 

[AB9NN]

I awoke this morning and threw together this little bat file. Sometimes I want ham radio frequencies included in my scan list, sometimes I don't. I click the Shortcut in Windows 10 and it runs. I have three scanlists setup. One with ham frequencies in it. One without. Each appropriately named as something other than FMP24.ScanList. This little bat file, then, changes directory to the appropriate directory and attempts to copy each file and name it as the FMP24.ScanList. It does, however, (always) ask if it's OK to do that first. So there are three branches. Do nothing. Copy over a file with hams. Or - copy over a file without hams. One risk is that if you have a FMP24.ScanList file that you saved with different frequencies than in the other two files - it can be destroyed - if you have not already also saved it as some other file name. Other than that it's quick solution to an otherwise bit of tedious typing.

CHDIR C:\_Files\SDR - Software Defined Radio\sdrsharp-x86\dsd+FASTLANE-FMN Scanner\Z - SCANNER 2
COPY FMP24ScanListPlusHams FMP24.ScanList /-Y
COPY FMP24ScanListNoHams FMP24.ScanList /-Y

 

[AB9NN]

I'm not doing any voice following, but running 4 dongles and DSD+ in CC mode watching 4 trunk systems and sharing the files. I just use the -F switch and increment the port number used between FMP & DSD. For example here is the line to start the 3rd instance of FMP24/DSD+:

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Starting FMP24 and DSD+
START FMP24 -i3 -P0.5 -_1 -f773.95625 -o20002 -g28 -b9 -z0 -s0 -t1
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK
START DSDPlus -F3 -_3 -O NUL -f1 -i20002 -v0 >>NUL
EXIT

You lost me on a couple of points. One: I had read that if you ran in CC mode (Control Channel) you needed two dongles and two instances of DSD+ and FMP24. The first FMP24 to tune the CC and send the signal to the first DSD+ to decode so the software can figure out what the VC (voice channel) is. Then the second dongle and second FMP24 instance to tune the VC and send it to the second DSD+ instance to decode to normal radio audio that we can listen to. So confused - you say your are not doing any voice following but are in CC mode??

Also - can you explain the line from your bat file:
TIMEOUT /T 2 /NOBREAK

 

[dave3825]

Got it. I fiddled with the DSD+ plugin for SDR# for some time and never did get it to work correctly.

What was the problem you were having with it? When I first started with it I had an issue or two but now it works. It was something with the switches that were predefined in the plugin. I ended up deleting all the switches and just run it with the following as shown in the pics.



The very top left says dsd path, click to edit. I have this set to my dsdplus.exe folder.

The auxiliary options have just window size and locations. I posted this as you cant see it all in the pic.

-wsl10.10 -wss200.300 -wsp100 -wel50.50 -wes400.500 -weh15 -wcl90.90 -wch15

Those are the settings that work for me. I open my dsd folder and double click dsdplus.exe. Then I load up sdr#, click on dsd interface, click enable aux output, set it to vb cable, and start scanning the freqs in my freq manager. When it detects digital, it decodes. Note I do not click start in the plugin.

Someone had made a dsdplus tcp plugin but it did not work with my version of sdr# at that time. I do have some older versions saved on a drive somewhere and am going to try it again one of these days. At some point there were changes to .net I believe and that's when a bunch of plugins were stopped working. They do get updated in a reasonable amount of time..

If I can find a decent screen recorder I would post a video of it set up and running.

Maybe if I go back and re-address the issue thing would work out better now that understand things a bit better.

The best part of these forums is there's always someone to help out. But as mentioned, fmp24 is a great scanner also. I do use both. Depending on my mood and what exactly I want to do determines which route I go. Some days I just want to listen to my area. Some days I want to search for dmr and or determine dmr trunked systems. Lots of new dmr popping up.