Hi,
I am looking for a way to modernize my scanning / BCFY feed using a combination of Linux, an RTL-SDR USB stick, Icecast, etc., and trying to fish for ideas to help me figure out a practical solution.
Currently I have a PC hosted at a relative's house on their internet connection with an old Uniden scanner hooked up to the PC sound card that monitors the nearby railroad and trains that runs past their house. This PC is running Proxmox Linux with a Debian VM running to ingest the scanner audio. The scanner listens to several train and rail frequencies (160-161 MHz) and publishes it here to BCFY with Icecast. This has worked well for several years, but there are several drawbacks to this, such as not being able to dynamically change the channels scanned remotely. I have to travel to their house and futz with the scanner every time I want to make changes. Also sometimes the scanner periodically shuts down for unknown reasons and I have to use a remote web power switch to cycle the power and reset the scanner manually.
What I'm trying to do is modernize my setup so I can retire the Uniden scanner and remotely control the reception of the frequencies. I've got the RTL-SDR v4 USB up and running and was able to successfully install OpenWebRX+ inside a Debian VM on the remote Proxmox environment, passing the USB device thru to the VM. If I hook up the antenna to the RTL-SDR I can remotely control the OpenWebRX+ and basically listen to any analog transmission within range of my relative's antenna. This is all secured and isolated to a private Wireguard VPN tunnel that I've set up between their network and my local one.
OpenWebRX+ seems to work great as a scanner GUI, but there are drawbacks preventing this from being a solution. Firstly, you have to log into the OpenWebRX interface to control it and listen. By default, it doesn't run in scan mode and you have to click buttons to adjust the squelch and get it to start scanning. This environment however does not persist after you close your browser tab, OpenWebRX returns to standby mode waiting for the next user to log in and listen to the frequencies.
Basically, I just want the RTL-SDR instance to headlessly (without a user/operator controlling it) continuously scan through a list of specified frequencies, and publish that audio stream to BCFY using Icecast or Darkice etc. It really seems like quite a simple task to accomplish. Has anyone pulled this off?
I am looking for a way to modernize my scanning / BCFY feed using a combination of Linux, an RTL-SDR USB stick, Icecast, etc., and trying to fish for ideas to help me figure out a practical solution.
Currently I have a PC hosted at a relative's house on their internet connection with an old Uniden scanner hooked up to the PC sound card that monitors the nearby railroad and trains that runs past their house. This PC is running Proxmox Linux with a Debian VM running to ingest the scanner audio. The scanner listens to several train and rail frequencies (160-161 MHz) and publishes it here to BCFY with Icecast. This has worked well for several years, but there are several drawbacks to this, such as not being able to dynamically change the channels scanned remotely. I have to travel to their house and futz with the scanner every time I want to make changes. Also sometimes the scanner periodically shuts down for unknown reasons and I have to use a remote web power switch to cycle the power and reset the scanner manually.
What I'm trying to do is modernize my setup so I can retire the Uniden scanner and remotely control the reception of the frequencies. I've got the RTL-SDR v4 USB up and running and was able to successfully install OpenWebRX+ inside a Debian VM on the remote Proxmox environment, passing the USB device thru to the VM. If I hook up the antenna to the RTL-SDR I can remotely control the OpenWebRX+ and basically listen to any analog transmission within range of my relative's antenna. This is all secured and isolated to a private Wireguard VPN tunnel that I've set up between their network and my local one.
OpenWebRX+ seems to work great as a scanner GUI, but there are drawbacks preventing this from being a solution. Firstly, you have to log into the OpenWebRX interface to control it and listen. By default, it doesn't run in scan mode and you have to click buttons to adjust the squelch and get it to start scanning. This environment however does not persist after you close your browser tab, OpenWebRX returns to standby mode waiting for the next user to log in and listen to the frequencies.
Basically, I just want the RTL-SDR instance to headlessly (without a user/operator controlling it) continuously scan through a list of specified frequencies, and publish that audio stream to BCFY using Icecast or Darkice etc. It really seems like quite a simple task to accomplish. Has anyone pulled this off?
