What Do You Use Your R820T SDR For?

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RonnieUSA

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What all do You use Your SDR for?
I tried the Plane tracking software, and couldn't seem to get it to work right.
I have read the wiki on this, but it seem not to help any, most thing are out of date or links don't work.
 

Pape

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I have one on the plane tracking. You need to use rtl 1090 to operate the dongle and send the information to the tracking software.
Ordered 2 other dongles to try the truck tracking and also play with gnu radio
 

jazzbassNick

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I've got one dedicated to air tracking - RTL1090>VirtualRadar>PlanePlotter which feeds various web site apps.

The other R820 and my E4000 I use either with Trunk88 or with Unitrunker, depending on the system.
 

Kirk

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Played with it for two or three days, now it's in a drawer.
 

n0nhp

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Monitor the 800MHz trunking spectrum, teach people about trunking etc, track down interference on UHF/VHF, send ADSB data to adsbSCOPE, Meteor scatter monitoring while out camping.
Lots and lots of stuff :)

I need to order a couple more.

Bruce
 

DC31

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My R820T

What all do You use Your SDR for?
I tried the Plane tracking software, and couldn't seem to get it to work right.
I have read the wiki on this, but it seem not to help any, most thing are out of date or links don't work.

I purchased a couple dongles to try to use as the source for a live audio feed, thereby eliminating the scanner. My feeds are from Raspberry Pi microcomputers. I spent about a month off and on trying to get it to work on the RPi without much success. There are lots of posts out there about people apparently making it work but all the threads I followed came to dead ends. Hooked up to a Mac laptop running GQRX i could get good audio out of the speakers. Hooked up to the RPi the best I could do was very choppy audio or just crackle. I packed the stuff away the other day and said enough is enough.
 

SCPD

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Glad I got the RTL-SDR. I sold all my HF gear recently and they make a great substitute. 'Specially if you add the up-converter. I listen more than I TX anyway, and having all modes, all bands, is great! i.e. I've never had 2M/440 SSB before.

Here's some of the things I've done in the past month or so of owning one:
k2nccvids - YouTube

Probably what I "do" most is monitor AIS for ship tracking. Satellites, ships, cars, trains, planes... I do seem to like to "track" things. Just recently hunted down a bunch of the ORBCOMM satellites. Satellite WEFAX is fun too. The list goes on. The RTL-SDRs have given me another 5 or 6 "modes", which isn't easy to do when you have 50+.

RTL-SDR... best thing since sliced bread I say!


vy 73, de frank k2ncc in Oregon
 

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Markb

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Here is my list:
- Unitrunker/Trunk88
- PDW (paging decoder)
- DSD
- Milsatcom rx
- RTL1090 ADSB decoder
- RTL_TCP using Raspberry Pi
- ACARSDec also using Pi

Admittedly, it has been challenging getting some of these to work, but rewarding when they do.

I ordered a few more today. I love the RTL'S. Hard to beat the price, but I am really looking forward to the Airspy and HackRF coming out soon. SDR, IMO, is redefining the radio monitoring hobby.

Don't be discouraged, Ronnie. There are other options for ADSB decoding. Try those out and see how it goes.


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk
 

smason

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What all do You use Your SDR for?

Which one? I think I have 4 plus a Funcube dongle.

1 is full time planeplotter. 1 I use for Unitrunker. Another I use at work for a general radio (FM broadcast, and some misc monitoring) Another I take on vacation for radio monitoring/snooping in foreign places.
Soon I'll set up 2 at work with Unitrunker and DSD to monitor a single police channel (my office is right near one site that I have trouble hearing from home)
 

rbm

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I use them for almost everything they can be used for.

I currently have seven with R820T tuners and three with E4000 tuners.

Four of the R820T's are connected to a USB 3.0 powered hub and ready to go instantly.

I use them for antenna testing, preamp evaluation, checking unknown signals, digital decoding, watching parts of the RF spectrum, downloading NOAA weather images, airplane tracking, SSTV, and I'm sure there's other things I forgot to mention.

I have SDR# installed in 14 separate folders.

Several of those folders are set up with VB Audio cable or VAC and configured and ready to go for all the digital stuff.
That way I don't have to keep changing the configurations.

I can swap from audio to digital modes instantly. OR copy digital modes and analog modes simultaneously.

All of the applications I use would take a lot of typing so I've attached a screen capture of the desktop on one of my computers.
You can click through to see the high resolution version.

Most of the applications I use are across the top of the desktop.
There also trunking decoders at the bottom right corner.

At this point, I don't know how I ever got along without them. ;)

Rich

Desktop




And here's a comparison of four different ST2 antennas simultaneously receiving the same SatCom signals.
Each image is labeled with the direction the antenna is facing.

 

RonnieUSA

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I'm not giving up, I'm just waiting for a couple adapters to come in that I ordered.
Just didn't look close enough at where they were coming from, should be here this week.
 

lotsofradios

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What all do You use Your SDR for?
I tried the Plane tracking software, and couldn't seem to get it to work right.
I have read the wiki on this, but it seem not to help any, most thing are out of date or links don't work.

I followed this guys setup instructions line for line and mine worked first time. I use RTL-1090 to receive the mode-s data then feed it to Virtual Radar. Works great here. You might want to try these step by step instructions Military Comms $20 ADSB Aircraft Radar System.
 

RonnieUSA

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jdobbs2001

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My Uniden trunktracker is gonna get little use now that I can track my local system. And it provides much more interesting info VS the trunktracker radio.

Also using it for ADSB etc..

I bought 4 of those 820T nooelec units.
 

rbm

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And yet another good use.

Sniffing out RFI.

I've been upgrading my security cameras to high resolution models.

Last night I noticed a horrendous noise level all over the AM aircraft band.
I couldn't hear it on a handheld scanner

So I fired up SDR# with a very slow waterfall rate and started disconnecting things around the house.

It turned out the the camera I installed yesterday generated lots of wide band noise when the IR LED's came on after dark.

That camera is only a few feet from my antennas.

Looking at SDRSharp, it was obviously happening when I powered up that camera.
And it disappeared when I powered it off.

So it's back to the older camera for that location.

SDR sharp made it much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Rich

 

Your_account

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I use SDR# to hear what in my City going on. There are all time the same feeder and i receive nothing new...
And i use 5 Dongle wit RTL1090 and 2 Yagi for an better Signal.
When i am leave my home i take 2-3 dongle wite me for RTL1090 and for some interesting Signal.
 

dtscho

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I use it for:

-DSD+ (mostly decoding DMR)
-Unitrunker (analyzing EDACS, P16, P25 control channels)
-DMRDecode (obtaining DMR parameters)
-LTR Analyzer (obtaining LTR parameters)

Dave
 

mm

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spectrum analyzer for RFI tracking with a tablet in helicopters, listening to local pd using NXDN, listening to highway patrol P25 system.

Spectrum analyzer for sweeping filters using home made directional coupler and sweep oscillator.

Ads-B side by side comparison when designing commercial avionics Ads-B receiver LNA's and portable antennas, you name it.

My E4000 dongle and a Dell venue 8 pro tablet makes a nice piece of portable test equipment when another engineer borrows my Rhode n Schwarz FSH spectrum analyzer/network analyzer.
 
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