![]() Here’s a picture of how it should look: The antenna should be vertically oriented. Preferably on a window, using the provided suction cup mount. Connect the female end of the provided longer cable to the dipole’s male end, the male end of the longer cable to your SDR, and then mount the antenna vertically as high as possible outside. Screw the long prongs of the antenna into the center, mount it on a window with the provided suction cup, and open the dipole arms at exactly 49.65 cm (1 foot 7.55 inches) each. The RTL-SDR dipole kit I’m using was also recommended by representatives of the European Space Agency at the Amateur Radio in Space (ARISS) International Face-to-face Meeting in June, 2019. through an online linkup with our F2F meeting in Montreal. It also comes with an adjustable dipole antenna kit, letting you listen from ~70 MHz to ~1030 MHz signals.ĭay 2 of ARISS Int'l F2F: David Honess of ESA opens today's sessions proposing excellent ways to engage kids with ISS ham radio projects using Raspberry Pi, RTL-SDR, SSTV mode communications, etc. It currently costs $29.95, ships worldwide, comes with a temperature compensated oscillator (TCXO), and a bias tee, which are great to have, but beyond the scope of this article to discuss. I’ll be using the RTL-SDR receiver and dipole from. While their original purpose was to receive video, these are now repurposed to receive radio signals, and have come to be known as RTL-SDR devices. However, since computers have become faster, we can perform these functions in software instead, making these types of radios software-defined.Ī popular (and cheap) SDR receiver is Digital Video Broadcast (DVB-T) receiver with the Realtek RTL2832U controller and tuner integrated circuit. Things like signal filtering, frequency mixing, radio wave detection, signal amplification, modulation/demodulation, and others were done with dedicated circuits. Before the rise of SDRs, you would need a dedicated circuit to perform the task of processing the signals to and from the radio. “What even is a ‘software-defined’ radio?” I hear you ask!Ī software-defined radio, is a radio device where most of the electrical components “emulated” in software. Setting Up Our Dipole Antenna and SDR Receiver Reach out to me for a PARS reference letter, if you’re looking to become a member. Pakistan’s Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933 prohibits possession of wireless telegraphy apparatus however, SWL members are allowed to possess receivers. If you live in Pakistan, you must obtain a PARS shortwave listening (SWL) membership before you obtain a radio receiver. You must consult your own lawyer for clarification. Please note, though: I am not a lawyer, and this does not constitute legal advice. It is your responsibility to ensure that you comply with local laws when performing radio experiments. In 2019, a United Nations expert was arrested in Tunisia for possessing the same software-defined radio device we will be using. While federal radio laws in Pakistan are severely restrictive, your jurisdiction may be more so. The author lives in and conducted these experiments legally in Pakistan. Through the hardware used in this article, you can only receive radio transmissions and not transmit your own own, but that is fine since you need an amateur radio license before doing so, anyways.Ĭaution! It is very easy to perform an illegal activity with radio equipment, which is why this article will continuously caution you and cite the law. I will then use the same equipment to receive an image transmitted from the International Space Station, a spacecraft orbiting the Earth, and use it to claim the ARISS SSTV Award, demonstrating how easy it is to browse the radio spectrum with cheap equipment and be recognized. In this software-defined radio tutorial, I’ll set up a software-defined radio device (SDR) and an antenna, and listen to a conversation between two licensed ham radio operators via the Lahore repeater. Now, it’s possible for someone with a laptop and less than $30 worth of equipment to receive a wide range of radio frequencies, and we’ll be doing just that. While radio has used fundamentally the same technology since Guglielmo Marconi first conducted his experiments in 1895, improved circuit design and signal processing techniques have allowed us to transmit much more and much farther out than before.
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