SDR

[sp1989]

Yes, you puter becomes a base station scanner. I guess some people have made portables using cheap tablets with the dongle attached, not sure how they do the antenna though. I have one from Nooelec and one from microADSB.com. They both work great for recievng ADSB signals, the microADSB is a little better, it came with a better antenna plus a software disc to install the drivers and receiver. Next step is to try using a dongle as a scanner and then a HF receiver, which requires an upconverter.

[cvrules90]

Yes, you puter becomes a base station scanner. I guess some people have made portables using cheap tablets with the dongle attached, not sure how they do the antenna though. I have one from Nooelec and one from microADSB.com. They both work great for recievng ADSB signals, the microADSB is a little better, it came with a better antenna plus a software disc to install the drivers and receiver. Next step is to try using a dongle as a scanner and then a HF receiver, which requires an upconverter.

Ah so it's like a PC HomePatrol and I can scan and hold and stuff like that.

[brandon]

@cvrules90: Go to YouTube and search for SDR radio and you will see plenty of videos showing what they can do.

One simple way to think of it is being able to visually see signals and tune them. Here are some screenshots I saved from previous monitoring. You can also do so much more especially in the decoding realm.

View of 700 MHz range showing some PSEC activity


View of 5 MHz aeronautical band. Some SSB signals, HFDL, sounders, etc. can all be seen. The horizontal lines were caused by static crashes from thunderstorm activity off the coast.


40 metre ham radio band received during the annual field day ham radio event. As you can see there were a lot of signals during this time.

[cvrules90]

@cvrules90: Go to YouTube and search for SDR radio and you will see plenty of videos showing what they can do.

One simple way to think of it is being able to visually see signals and tune them. Here are some screenshots I saved from previous monitoring. You can also do so much more especially in the decoding realm.

View of 700 MHz range showing some PSEC activity


View of 5 MHz aeronautical band. Some SSB signals, HFDL, sounders, etc. can all be seen. The horizontal lines were caused by static crashes from thunderstorm activity off the coast.


40 metre ham radio band received during the annual field day ham radio event. As you can see there were a lot of signals during this time.

Looks really inviting. I think I'll check it out these days.