PDW/POCSAG & SDR

[Gmork]

Afternoon,

I have used SDR dongles for years decoding mainly trunked systems in Unitrunker. Occasionally using them to monitor voice transmissions.

Recently I started decoding the county fire pager frequency to monitor calls. I am currently using a R820T2 which I had previously used for Unitrunker. Last week I started using PDW and cannot get a decent signal on it. The signal fluctuates for no reason going from 100% to 60 to 80 & so on.

I have searched this topic, and cannot find an answer. I am using an attic antenna which works great as I have used it to monitor audio. I can decode some pages but it gets buggy at times. I am using VB Virtual audio cable, I actually used a different audio cable thinking that may be the culprit.

I am at a point where I may actually purchased a legitimate SDR receiver. What is everyone else using to decode or even monitor RF in general? I have ferrite beads on the USB cables. I have no idea what to do at this point.

 

[AM909]

PDW needs a fairly high audio level. What are you using for a receiver (i.e., what feeds VBCable)? If you are using SDR#, set the audio slider on the toolbar to at least 50. I've never gotten consistent results from the meter in PDW, regardless of the audio level I feed it. Does VBCable work with other apps?

 

[Gmork]

Using SDR sharp audio at 49-50db

 

[Gmork]

For the past hour, the decode level is at 100% with occasional "packet loss" missing some characters in pages. However it is decoding all other pages correctly. I did not make any adjustments to anything since my first post. I anticipate at some point the level was drop back down.

Again using an attic antenna, I am not far from the transmit site.

 

[Dirk_SDR]

I had no luck with SDR# and PDW in the beginning, because I didn't set "Correct IQ" to true.
With that setting the audio level could be much lower as well.

 

[Gmork]

I had no luck with SDR# and PDW in the beginning, because I didn't set "Correct IQ" to true.
With that setting the audio level could be much lower as well.

I have that checked, I had seen that in another thread. Most of the afternoon it has been decoding pages, there is still packet loss in some of the pages. Sitting at 99.3% currently...

 

[Dirk_SDR]

If you are not satisfied with PDW, you could try "SDRSharp Pocsag Plugin".
Download: Release r5 · Dustify/SdrSharpPocsagPlugin
After copying "Pocsag.dll" und "Pocsag.Plugin.dll" into the Plugins folder of SDR#, the decoder is usable.
Perhaps give it a try ...

 

[w6awo]

I am starting to get POCSAG decodes with SDR# > VB Cable > PDW. The meter goes full right when receiving a POCSAG signal and POCSAG - 1200 appears in the left part of the toolbar. But even after trying many different audio level settings the signal quality never gets above 10%. Am I missing a basic setting?

I also see the yellow triangle/exclamation point to the left of the signal meter. Does this indicate an overload or a low signal level?

Thanks,

RD

 

[noamlivne]

I am starting to get POCSAG decodes with SDR# > VB Cable > PDW. The meter goes full right when receiving a POCSAG signal and POCSAG - 1200 appears in the left part of the toolbar. But even after trying many different audio level settings the signal quality never gets above 10%. Am I missing a basic setting?

I also see the yellow triangle/exclamation point to the left of the signal meter. Does this indicate an overload or a low signal level?

Thanks,

RD

Providing the signal is clean and accurate and strong, send screen captures of your Sdrsharp main window with the signal and your Settings screens, etc. So people can assist you.

 

[CYUL]

I am starting to get POCSAG decodes with SDR# > VB Cable > PDW. The meter goes full right when receiving a POCSAG signal and POCSAG - 1200 appears in the left part of the toolbar. But even after trying many different audio level settings the signal quality never gets above 10%. Am I missing a basic setting?

I also see the yellow triangle/exclamation point to the left of the signal meter. Does this indicate an overload or a low signal level?

Thanks,

RD

I have PDW running on a couple of PCs with SDR#. It requires some adjustments in SDR# to get it sync'ed correctly. One thing to always check is that audio filtering is unchecked. Also, I had to play with the VB Cable input levels to avoid overloading the PDW. Once I had that worked out I was good to go. I just set it up on this PC as a test, it was decoding in a minute.