convivium
Member
Hello.
I am new to the forum and new to software defined radio.
I am currently a college student at Clemson University studying Bio-materials Engineering. I hope to one day develop a 100% bio-compatible, fully implantable human heart for individuals born with congenital heart defects.
I am somewhat familiar with frequency, phase, period, sine - triangle - square and sawtooth wave formats, and the Fast Fourier Transformations for attack - sustain - release & decay.
Recently, I purchased two DVB-T + DAB+FM dongles. RTL2832 and I have a working setup.
Pictures.
However, I do have a few questions that maybe someone more with more expertise than I can answer.
1) What is RF Gain? I realize it increases the sensitivity of the RTL but my dongle seems to like the RF Gain relatively high, currently 44.2 decibels. If I decrease the RF Gain to around 22 - 32 dB then I am unable to control the squelch. Which brings me to my next question.
2) Is the amount of squelch related in anyway to the size of the bandwidth that I am using to receive the full signal that is being transmitted? Often times it appears that the higher bandwidth the lower squelch I need to set to cut the below decibel frequency waves out.
3) What filters are optimal and should I be using the options Turner AGC or RTL AGC? If so what do these actually mean to me as a straight listener.
4) Does the new SDRSharp v1328 with Unitrunker still require two dongles? If so, would you advise me to purchase Virtual Audio Cable or use VB-Cable for free? Does the free version of VB-Cable come with two virtual cables or just one? Any other free virtual audio cable program suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
5) When using SDRSharp are there any plugins more notable for searching the through my favorites list for transmissions (ie if I have 10 saves in my frequency manager what plugin would you suggest for searching through the list quickly to target a transmission?) I have tried a few and can never get them to actually stop on the transmitting frequency. Maybe I have the settings confused, so a quick, rough guideline would be helpful if you can provide one.
6) When listening to transmissions, I often hear "switching to channel 2." What does this mean? Is this something I am allowed to listen to or is this a non-public encrypted channel? Obviously, I know you don't live in my area and do not have access to my frequencies but it someone told you to "switch to channel 2" can it be done using SDR? If so, how?
7) Is it possible to stream to a achieve a live streaming feed using SDRSharp? If so, what website should I setup a streaming account with and what settings need to be changed inside SDRSharp to allow the audio transmission to produce this live streaming feed.
8) Finally, often times after returning from campus I notice when I tweak a few settings the SDRSharp program receives a lot of feedback( the annoying scratching noise). Sometimes I am unable to tune the squelch enough to remove this and have to completely close SDRSharp down and restart the program. This often occurs when I decrease the step size to show more of my favorite channels in the signal vs noise pane. If I decrease my step size should I also be decreasing my bandwidth or does SDRSharp automatically rescale the bandwidth to the appropriate size for my step size settings. I usually switch between 12.5 kHz and 6.5kHz. I use a bandwidth around 18,000 hertz.
These are my main questions so far.
I do appreciate any assistance, tips, answers and pointers you might be able to provide.
Thank you for providing a superb radio forum where experts, amateurs and newbies, such as myself, can interact and exchange dialogue.
Go Tigers!
I am new to the forum and new to software defined radio.
I am currently a college student at Clemson University studying Bio-materials Engineering. I hope to one day develop a 100% bio-compatible, fully implantable human heart for individuals born with congenital heart defects.
I am somewhat familiar with frequency, phase, period, sine - triangle - square and sawtooth wave formats, and the Fast Fourier Transformations for attack - sustain - release & decay.
Recently, I purchased two DVB-T + DAB+FM dongles. RTL2832 and I have a working setup.
Pictures.
However, I do have a few questions that maybe someone more with more expertise than I can answer.
1) What is RF Gain? I realize it increases the sensitivity of the RTL but my dongle seems to like the RF Gain relatively high, currently 44.2 decibels. If I decrease the RF Gain to around 22 - 32 dB then I am unable to control the squelch. Which brings me to my next question.
2) Is the amount of squelch related in anyway to the size of the bandwidth that I am using to receive the full signal that is being transmitted? Often times it appears that the higher bandwidth the lower squelch I need to set to cut the below decibel frequency waves out.
3) What filters are optimal and should I be using the options Turner AGC or RTL AGC? If so what do these actually mean to me as a straight listener.
4) Does the new SDRSharp v1328 with Unitrunker still require two dongles? If so, would you advise me to purchase Virtual Audio Cable or use VB-Cable for free? Does the free version of VB-Cable come with two virtual cables or just one? Any other free virtual audio cable program suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
5) When using SDRSharp are there any plugins more notable for searching the through my favorites list for transmissions (ie if I have 10 saves in my frequency manager what plugin would you suggest for searching through the list quickly to target a transmission?) I have tried a few and can never get them to actually stop on the transmitting frequency. Maybe I have the settings confused, so a quick, rough guideline would be helpful if you can provide one.
6) When listening to transmissions, I often hear "switching to channel 2." What does this mean? Is this something I am allowed to listen to or is this a non-public encrypted channel? Obviously, I know you don't live in my area and do not have access to my frequencies but it someone told you to "switch to channel 2" can it be done using SDR? If so, how?
7) Is it possible to stream to a achieve a live streaming feed using SDRSharp? If so, what website should I setup a streaming account with and what settings need to be changed inside SDRSharp to allow the audio transmission to produce this live streaming feed.
8) Finally, often times after returning from campus I notice when I tweak a few settings the SDRSharp program receives a lot of feedback( the annoying scratching noise). Sometimes I am unable to tune the squelch enough to remove this and have to completely close SDRSharp down and restart the program. This often occurs when I decrease the step size to show more of my favorite channels in the signal vs noise pane. If I decrease my step size should I also be decreasing my bandwidth or does SDRSharp automatically rescale the bandwidth to the appropriate size for my step size settings. I usually switch between 12.5 kHz and 6.5kHz. I use a bandwidth around 18,000 hertz.
These are my main questions so far.
I do appreciate any assistance, tips, answers and pointers you might be able to provide.
Thank you for providing a superb radio forum where experts, amateurs and newbies, such as myself, can interact and exchange dialogue.
Go Tigers!
