Thank you to Eric Inloes for submitting to the blog his new tool called "iq_tool". This is a tool designed to "provide an easy, fast, and lightweight command-line utility for converting I/Q data from files or SDRs to a specific sample rate and format, and then either piping it to other programs or writing it […]

Thank you to Mike (DL2MF) for writing in about the release of OpenWXSDR, a new open-source Python framework that turns one or more RTL-SDR dongles or Airspy SDRs into a fully automated radiosonde ground station running on a Raspberry Pi 4/5 or Linux x86 machine. If you are unaware, a radiosonde is a lightweight instrument […]

Over on GitHub, programmer blantonl has released p25-survey, a Python tool that scans a frequency range with an RTL-SDR, Airspy or HackRF and identifies any P25 control channels present. For each one found, it logs the WACN, System ID, NAC, RFSS ID and Site ID, the full IDEN_UP band plan, neighbor sites with resolved frequencies, […]

Over on GitHub, Martin (mgrone) recently released stream1090, a new open source C++ Mode-S demodulator that takes a fundamentally different approach to finding aircraft messages. Rather than searching for the traditional preamble pulse sequence as dump1090 and readsb do, stream1090 continuously maintains shift registers and identifies valid messages based on their CRC checksum. In busy airspace…

Thank you to Simone Spadino for writing in and sharing how he received the S-band carrier signal from the Artemis 2 Orion capsule from his home in Italy, using a simple one-meter Wi-Fi grid dish, an Airspy R2, an LNA, a filter, and a downconverter. Simone notes that his results show it is possible to receive the […]

Recently, M. Khanfar released a new free program, "Analog Radio Hunter," described as a "professional RF analysis and monitoring application built around GNU Radio and Fosphor." The software currently supports RTL-SDR, Airspy, and HackRF. Khanfar writes: Analog Radio Hunter is a professional RF analysis and monitoring application built around GNU Radio and Fosphor. It is designed to […]