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WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

websdr.org

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Re: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

#13

Post by galangalalgol »

JWLong wrote: post #8
ianburrell wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is closed. There is a lot of ham radio software that isn't open source. And a lot of open source isn't developed openly. You would think that all of it would be open source but I think a lot of hams didn't come from software world.

There’s quite a bit of overlap, actually. For some reason all of the old hams want to do .NET applications, though. I really think this is one of the reasons for the stagnation in the field.

What would people want this to look like? Is there a backlog anywhere of stuff people would want?

Edit: I was thinking maybe something that reads from an rtl or airspy, or maybe soapy? Then takes requests for channels over websockets from a wasm front end, then have the demod wasm side? And a waterfall streamed as a video to aid in making the channel selection? It would save bw to put demod server side, but this way clients could use custom demods if they want.

Re: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

#14

Post by imroot »

rlex wrote: post #10
riffic wrote: post #2

it's still closed source software? previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18571139

for open source alternative take a look at https://www.openwebrx.de/ Can also demodulate digital modes (DMR, YSF, etC) and it have nice, modern UI. WebSDR have a weird list of requirements if you want to get install file - should open instance to public, provide lots of info, etc etc etc. It's not just closed-source.

I thought that it couldn't demodulate DMR and other modes unless it had the hardware to do so. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Re: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

#16

Post by reactordev »

JWLong wrote: post #8
ianburrell wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is closed. There is a lot of ham radio software that isn't open source. And a lot of open source isn't developed openly. You would think that all of it would be open source but I think a lot of hams didn't come from software world.

There’s quite a bit of overlap, actually. For some reason all of the old hams want to do .NET applications, though. I really think this is one of the reasons for the stagnation in the field.

To add color to this. The reason being is because a lot of the old C++ libraries and code no longer function so pushing for .NET applications helps bring them into the 21st century. Also, I think it’s more because of the fact that C# is very familiar to C/C++ developers. However, I believe the true target architecture should be Linux and there’s some work in this area. GNU Radio, Gqrx, Qradiolink.

It just depends on where you are looking. There’s plenty of OSS for SDR (it’s in the kernel, btw) on Linux. Windows you’re going to get closed source 80% of the time. Mac, forget about it.

-Old Ham

Re: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

#17

Post by reactordev »

galangalalgol wrote: post #13
JWLong wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s quite a bit of overlap, actually. For some reason all of the old hams want to do .NET applications, though. I really think this is one of the reasons for the stagnation in the field.

What would people want this to look like? Is there a backlog anywhere of stuff people would want? Edit: I was thinking maybe something that reads from an rtl or airspy, or maybe soapy? Then takes requests for channels over websockets from a wasm front end, then have the demod wasm side? And a waterfall streamed as a video to aid in making the channel selection? It would save bw to put demod server side, but this way…

The perceived stagnation in the field is because you can’t multiplex an SDR stream. One user can control the radio at a time. You can not listen on more bands than your radio can receive at once. Capping out at 192hz band audio sampling on most hardware. Which means you can read a wide signal but you can only read one area of the spectrum at a time.

You would need more radios. If you added more radios you would need antenna that worked across the various bands people would want to listen in on. Those can create “cross-talk” to other antenna close-by. There’s not a simple solution to this. Nor does the novelty of it warrant solving this problem.

I think something like FlightAware where users sample their own radios at frequencies and submit them to a service that can aggregate the spectrum in real-time is the only real way to provide a web-based “tune to any radio frequency” SDR.

Re: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

#18

Post by galangalalgol »

reactordev wrote: post #17
galangalalgol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would people want this to look like? Is there a backlog anywhere of stuff people would want? Edit: I was thinking maybe something that reads from an rtl or airspy, or maybe soapy? Then takes requests for channels over websockets from a wasm front end, then have the demod wasm side? And a waterfall streamed as a video to aid in making the channel selection? It would save bw to put demod server side, but this way…

The perceived stagnation in the field is because you can’t multiplex an SDR stream. One user can control the radio at a time. You can not listen on more bands than your radio can receive at once. Capping out at 192hz band audio sampling on most hardware. Which means you can read a wide signal but you can only read one area of the spectrum at a time. You would need more radios. If you added more radios you would need…

An airspy can digitize 12MHz of bandwidth at once. Even without a gpu you can spit out easily over a dozen digitally subtuned channels. The bandwidth for all that raw signal data going out would be the problem. Only one person can control where that 12MHz is centred, but people can pick where in it they want to listen just like they do with websdr now.

Re: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

#19

Post by reactordev »

galangalalgol wrote: post #18
reactordev wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perceived stagnation in the field is because you can’t multiplex an SDR stream. One user can control the radio at a time. You can not listen on more bands than your radio can receive at once. Capping out at 192hz band audio sampling on most hardware. Which means you can read a wide signal but you can only read one area of the spectrum at a time. You would need more radios. If you added more radios you would need…

An airspy can digitize 12MHz of bandwidth at once. Even without a gpu you can spit out easily over a dozen digitally subtuned channels. The bandwidth for all that raw signal data going out would be the problem. Only one person can control where that 12MHz is centred, but people can pick where in it they want to listen just like they do with websdr now.

Damn! Yes, you would need to have one user center the spectrum read and you can mux the output to users wanting specific bands but I had no idea an airspy had such a wide audio capture.

Edit: I looked it up. You are indeed correct. 10MSPS IQ output. 10Mhz panorama spectrum view. That’s ridiculous! I just bought one.

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