Monday, 3 September 2012

£13 SDR Dongle has more work to do!

Just had a visit from Charlie G3WDG who was in Dallas on business. He also delivered my 9cm EME QSL card!

I had mentioned the £13 dongle to him at the EME conference so we talked at how to install it. While browsing the web for the drivers I discovered a page at osmocon (scroll down) which lists software that utilises the output from the dongle to decode various modes. The majority are not windows based so I decided now was the time to investigate "computers: the dark side" ie make a Linux machine. As Raspberry PI were now becoming available at respectable delivery time to order one!.

While discussing other matters with Doug G4DZU on skype,  who i know is a Linux user, he pointed me at an "idiots guide" article on using the dongle with a linux machine  He also pointed out that my Atom 945 M.B. which has now been replaced by the faster Atom 525 M.B. may be usable as a Linux machine.  I did hook the dongle to my ADSB antenna and succesfully saw planes approaching DFW so I know that bit works!

Talking of ADSB I already had a beaglebone board  bought in antipation of DL4MEAs Radarcape board that will turn it into an ADSB decoder (yes it is a Linux machine  but i was told Radarcape would be easy to install!) but in the meantime its time to try and make it flash an LED!

I also noticed software to turn the dongle into a GPS receiver. I know it wont be as cheap as  a $10 surplus motorola Oncore module but it will be fun
  

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