Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
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Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
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Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#2This sort of setup can also be used to monitor aircraft squelches. I got a few Raspberry Pis during a B1G1 sale, so I have one of these setups at work and at home. I like watching the planes as they take off from the local airport and queue up for arrival, and also seeing the nightly freight flights.
More info here: http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
You can feed into sites like Flightaware and FlightRadar24 and get accounts with them that normally cost a lot for free.
Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#3If people are interested in listening to signals I'd recommend checking out the ELF to VLF bands. You can, in most cases, build a receiver that operates directly on your system's sound card. These lower frequencies largely present an antenna building challenge but there's lots of interesting things down at those frequencies. Submarines, hams, and space weather.
The HF to EHF bands are fun but the lower frequencies, which are mostly ignored, are just as much of a gold mine for fun projects.
Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#4If you do not have one, get yourself an RTL-SDR today. This is a cheap ($10) way into radio and you will be impressed with what you can do.
From radio scanning to public safety radio to airplane tracking all with free software!
Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#5If you do not have one, get yourself an RTL-SDR today. This is a cheap ($10) way into radio and you will be impressed with what you can do. From radio scanning to public safety radio to airplane tracking all with free software!
Agreed. While I love the analog scales on old radios and the glowing light behind the dials, SDR is so fun, portable and cheap to play with. After wetting the toes with repurposed cheap TV dongles, I'd suggest to get a dongle from rtl-sdr.com (satisfied customer, no affiliation whasoever). I have two of their dongles and while they're priced almost in the same league of the TV ones ($20 dongle alone, or $25 with 2 antennas) the performance wrt sensitivity and noise floor is remarkably better.
Next purchase then will be a upconverter to get the interesting stuff aired in the HF bands. There are ways to convert dongles into direct sampling receivers for these bands; I can't report on their workings as I never tried them but without any filtering on the input I believe the performance won't be that good, at least compared to a full blown converter with filtering at the front end stage.
Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#6If you do not have one, get yourself an RTL-SDR today. This is a cheap ($10) way into radio and you will be impressed with what you can do. From radio scanning to public safety radio to airplane tracking all with free software!
I use Dump 1090 on my Pi to catch ADSB signals, but I've yet to figure out radio with my sdr.
Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#7This sort of setup can also be used to monitor aircraft squelches. I got a few Raspberry Pis during a B1G1 sale, so I have one of these setups at work and at home. I like watching the planes as they take off from the local airport and queue up for arrival, and also seeing the nightly freight flights. More info here: http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/ You can feed into sites like Flightaware and FlightRadar24 and ge…
Yes! I've been feeding into FlightRadar24 for some time to sate my strange curiosity with aviation. It's also Swedish company that is pretty accessible if you have questions or suggestions (and incidentally is hiring). I don't work there, just a big fan.
Re: Listening to 700 MHz Simulcast public safety radio cheaply
#8If you do not have one, get yourself an RTL-SDR today. This is a cheap ($10) way into radio and you will be impressed with what you can do. From radio scanning to public safety radio to airplane tracking all with free software!
Ok, I ordered one of these based on your comment. Looking forward with a new toy to play with when it arrives.