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GNU Radio

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Re: GNU Radio

#21

Post by superkuh »

ggm wrote: post #2

Has always done a terrible job of selling itself. A $25 dtv receiver and a chickenwire antenna parabola and code your own satellite TV decoder, learn what radar guns emit, emulate a modem... maybe even shift to IR and do TV controls.. it's, latent in this stuff. But the frontpage doesn't take you there.

Sure. That's because GNU Radio is for making the applications/flowgraphs. It is not an application you "use". It is an application for making applications. Give a newbie even the friendly GUI gnuradio-companion and they're not going to be able to do much without some serious time learning or existing DSP background.

Re: GNU Radio

#22

Post by superkuh »

RF_Savage wrote: post #16

I just wish GNU Radio did not brake compability between versions. 3.6 --> 3.7 --> 3.8 all ware breaking. So no older example or block you find will work in the current version. This is infuriating when trying to learn and following tutorials. All my friends seem to have migrated to building their prototypes in C using something like liquid-dsp instead of gnuradio. As that will compile and work next year.

It is frustrating. What I do is keep computers from a given time era in their natural state of software. So now I have a physical computer for running GR 3.6 stuff, one for 3.7 stuff, and soon I'll have one for 3.8 stuff. Trying to constantly upgrade and getting rid of old installs is counterproductive.

This applies in general to all software. It's really nice to have old OSes use applications that can't run on newer distros.

Re: GNU Radio

#23

Post by octagons »

szopa wrote: post #9
ggm wrote: post #2

Has always done a terrible job of selling itself. A $25 dtv receiver and a chickenwire antenna parabola and code your own satellite TV decoder, learn what radar guns emit, emulate a modem... maybe even shift to IR and do TV controls.. it's, latent in this stuff. But the frontpage doesn't take you there.

What are some good resources to start playing with SD add an amateur?

Check out the Field Expedient SDR series. They offer a decent introduction for beginners.

Re: GNU Radio

#24

Post by teleforce »

This is an excellent book on learning DSP for modern wireless communications and it should get you over the fundamentals [1].

There is an interesting project for open source LoRa physical layer implementation in GNU Radio. The authors had to reverse engineer the LoRa physical layer for the implementation because it is proprietary unlike the data link layer LoRaWAN part of it [2].

[1]Digital Signal Processing in Modern Communication Systems:

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Signal-Processing-Communicati...

[2]LoRa PHY based on GNU Radio:

https://www.epfl.ch/labs/tcl/resources-and-sw/lora-phy/

Re: GNU Radio

#25

Post by galangalalgol »

ggm wrote: post #2

Has always done a terrible job of selling itself. A $25 dtv receiver and a chickenwire antenna parabola and code your own satellite TV decoder, learn what radar guns emit, emulate a modem... maybe even shift to IR and do TV controls.. it's, latent in this stuff. But the frontpage doesn't take you there.

that $25 dtv receiver only goes up to 2ghz so you can't get satellite tv without building a downconverter which isn't trivial or as cheap. Radar guns are even higher in frequency. It can only receive so you can emulate only the demodulation part of a modem. IR sounds like fun though. You could listen to tire pressure monitors too.

Re: GNU Radio

#26

Post by ganzuul »

ggm wrote: post #2

Has always done a terrible job of selling itself. A $25 dtv receiver and a chickenwire antenna parabola and code your own satellite TV decoder, learn what radar guns emit, emulate a modem... maybe even shift to IR and do TV controls.. it's, latent in this stuff. But the frontpage doesn't take you there.

For a little more investment you can get hacked version with a TCXO and it is able to receive almost 0 to IIRC 28MHz. It is a 2.8MHz spectrum analyzer although energy readings are not a feature.

However cities are terribly noisy environments so loop antennas should work better for most people. Most amateur radio guides assume you are at least a homeowner but that is not realistic among people interested in a 20 eurodollar receiver.

Re: GNU Radio

#27

Post by throway453sde »

RF_Savage wrote: post #15
geenew wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to use a laptop's built-in wifi antenna / wifi card as the hardware side of a gnu radio setup? That seems like it would be a nice cheap one-two punch for getting started. AFAIR wifi uses the public (unregulated) bands so there should be lots of interesting stuff on those frequencies beyond wifi signals.

Due to it being a radio licenced by rule, the firmware in wifi devices is locked down tight. If it ware wide open FCC would revoke it's type acceptance. The only project that so far has managed to even partially use wifi hardware as a more generic SDR is nexmon[1] and even that is rather involved. Really cool project but not much heard since 2018. For just experimenting with modems across a noisy path one could just…

If i run linux can i modify the firmware? Also the regulations differ from country to country so this should be legal in some of the country.

Re: GNU Radio

#28

Post by doom2 »

Does GNU Radio have any utility for amateur radio operators? For example, tx/rx of FT8 or PSK31 (or any other digital modes)?

Re: GNU Radio

#29

Post by n00p »

galangalalgol wrote: post #25
ggm wrote: post #2

Has always done a terrible job of selling itself. A $25 dtv receiver and a chickenwire antenna parabola and code your own satellite TV decoder, learn what radar guns emit, emulate a modem... maybe even shift to IR and do TV controls.. it's, latent in this stuff. But the frontpage doesn't take you there.

that $25 dtv receiver only goes up to 2ghz so you can't get satellite tv without building a downconverter which isn't trivial or as cheap. Radar guns are even higher in frequency. It can only receive so you can emulate only the demodulation part of a modem. IR sounds like fun though. You could listen to tire pressure monitors too.

an LNB (the thing that goes in the focus of a parabolic antena) is really cheap and easy to power

the probem would be that the cheap dtv (RTL-SDR) only gets up to 2.4MHz of spectrum bandwith, a typical DVB-S mux can be around 20MHz or the DVB-T terrestrial standard, 8MHz

Re: GNU Radio

#30

Post by dang »

Some past threads:

FM Reception with the GNU Radio Companion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25976599 - Jan 2021 (18 comments)

GNU Radio 3.9 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823359 - Jan 2021 (53 comments)

Software Defined Radios with GNU Radio Companion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208497 - Aug 2020 (1 comment)

Decoding radio telemetry heard on news helicopter video footage with GNU Radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23417891 - June 2020 (36 comments)

An Implementation of Tempest in GNU Radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23151880 - May 2020 (35 comments)

GNU Radio first steps: a FM receiver - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613988 - Nov 2019 (38 comments)

GNU Radio 3.8 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20681316 - Aug 2019 (67 comments)

Shinysdr – Software-defined radio receiver application built on GNU Radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14170516 - April 2017 (19 comments)

A Peek at GNU Radio’s Buffer Architecture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13406505 - Jan 2017 (15 comments)

Digital Video Transmission using LimeSDR and GNU Radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856912 - June 2016 (8 comments)

Public safety radio systems decoding with GNU-radio OP25 project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11696507 - May 2016 (1 comment)

GNU Radio Tools for Radio Wrangling and Spectrum Domination [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10843175 - Jan 2016 (22 comments)

Taking control of a 36 year old NASA spacecraft using GNU radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9476853 - May 2015 (7 comments)

Taking the Raspberry Pi 2 for a Test Drive with GNU Radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9420427 - April 2015 (46 comments)

How to talk to a 36-year-old space probe with GNU Radio, a USRP and a big dish - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8028773 - July 2014 (18 comments)

Exciting developments in GNU Radio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2279758 - March 2011 (2 comments)

GNU Radio - create your own software-defined radio device - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=622035 - May 2009 (6 comments)

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