RTL-SDR for monitoring in Southern Ontario

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slicerwizard

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If you're on a budget, there's always the $50 route - two decent RTL dongles gets you analog and plenty of digital (P25, NXDN, DMR, D-Star, Fusion...)
 

acre

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Thanks Slicer. What is an RTL dongle?I know what a dongle is. I assume they plug into two of my PC's USB ports?
 

slicerwizard

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Thanks Slicer. What is an RTL dongle?I know what a dongle is. I assume they plug into two of my PC's USB ports?
They are USB-based RF receivers that in conjunction with free software let you monitor most analog and digital signals. Sounds like you want to hear Fleetnet (OPP, MOH, etc.) and maybe some analog or digital fire departments, all of which these devices do.

I generally use these ones: Buy RTL-SDR Dongles (RTL2832U)

US$24.95 from the Chinese source gets me a dongle and the two antennas. No tax or shipping fees. One is enough to scan multiple conventional analog and/or digital signals. Trunking generally requires two dongles. They tend to score fairly high on the WAF scale.
 

moonbounce

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You also can get away with using one dongle, so now you would be down to $25 dollars, lol.

MB
 

VE3GWM

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You also can get away with using one dongle, so now you would be down to $25 dollars, lol.



MB



What all is required for a dongle like software supplied as an example.

I am just getting back into scanning or listening.

Appreciate any comments.

Regards

Bill



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

VA3DBJ

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I am going to grab a couple of them, is there a specific software that you guys recommend? Or are they all pretty much the same?
 

moonbounce

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I am going to grab a couple of them, is there a specific software that you guys recommend? Or are they all pretty much the same?

For some reason I can't bring up your original post but I think you were saying you wanted to monitor an Apco 25 digital/analog system. For that I use one rtl-sdr v3 dongle, well worth it for the money.

For software I use DSDPlus 1.074 ( download here ( ]https://www.dsdplus.com/) and Unitrunker ( download here, http://www.unitrunker.com) and download/ version 1.0.32.7. Also required, Virtual audio cable ( download here http://www.vb-audio.com/).

That should get you started, now keep a bottle of your fav. headache medication handy you will probably need it :)

MB
 
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polkaroo

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May I ask how you're able to steer the single SDR for voice follow on a trunked system? I'd love to be able to do that! Right now I'm using DSDplus and manually tuning via SDRSharp.

This is one feature I'd love to have in DSDplus and/or SDRSharp - the ability for one SDR dongle to track, record and listen to a trunked system with voice frequencies within the range of the SDR swatch. Then advanced features like cascading SDR dongles so they program will use them if necessary to tune to frequencies outside a single SDR stick. In the far future. Sounds simple on paper. lol.
 

polkaroo

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I believe Unitrunker will simultaneously monitor control and voice channels with one dongle if the channels are within a couple of MHz of each other.

I've run DSDplus and Unitrunker simultaneously feeding the same audio and DSDplus seems much more accurate at decoding trunking data, let alone voice. Perhaps DSDplus can have some Motorola RSS/terminal-style F1/F2/F3 menus. I can't remember command line switches for the life of me. Should post on the Voice/CC decode forum although from the lack of updates, might be a dead/dying project. Getting off topic now.
 

moonbounce

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May I ask how you're able to steer the single SDR for voice follow on a trunked system? I'd love to be able to do that! Right now I'm using DSDplus and manually tuning via SDRSharp.

This is one feature I'd love to have in DSDplus and/or SDRSharp - the ability for one SDR dongle to track, record and listen to a trunked system with voice frequencies within the range of the SDR swatch. Then advanced features like cascading SDR dongles so they program will use them if necessary to tune to frequencies outside a single SDR stick. In the far future. Sounds simple on paper. lol.

Well, like I said, all frequencies I monitor fall within 1Mhz either side of the CC. So using Unitrunker I set the CC and fill in the necessary frequencies and VB Cable send the signal to DSDPlus 1.074 or DSDPlus 1.101 and VLC records everything and is voice activated.

I have never had to use two dongles and just one other thing, the CC never changes.

MB
 

TenFiftyOne

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Unitrunker and DSD+ with V-Cable confirmed working on 3 of Ottawa's nets, EDACS, Fleetnet and P25. There are a lot of other interesting pieces of software, PDW, AGW Tracker, SDR Console, AGW Packet Engine, openpoc, Wireshark, etc.
 
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