Radio/SDR

Software defined radio topics

Block Diagram

From this site: https://github.com/softerhardware/Hermes-Lite

A nice explanation of different components of a software defined radio system

Communication

• usb or ethernet

Receiver

• filters

Transmitter

• power amplifier
• filters

Time standards

• gps
• crystals

Sound interface

• Softrock

Power supply

Essentially, you have computer stuff going to the SDR device, then some analog stuff going from the SDR device to the antenna and/or other stuff.

SDR Ideas

ideas around SDR:

homebrew slinky antenna:

• receive signals through RTL-SDR + gnuradio (workarounds? kali causing some problems. try 2016.01)
• receive signals through RTL-SDR + gnuradio with a homebrew slinky antenna
• receive signals through hackrf with homebrew slinky antenna

better antenna:

• 10m ham stick
• 15m - 40m dipole
• 20m log periodic yagi

10m ham stick

• receive signals through hackrf with 10m ham stick
• amplify received signals with external antenna

40m dipole

• receive signals through hackrf + ham it up
• transmit/receive signals through hackrf + ham it up (across the room, across the town)
• amplify transmitted/received signals through hackrf + ham it up w/o frying hackrf

embedded sdr

• odyssey space http://openhpsdr.org/odyssey.php

References

Airspy + antenna - explanation of gain, signal, noise, etc: http://ava.upuaut.net/?p=836

high performance sdr: next gen sdr http://openhpsdr.org/

• break up overall design into modules, with each module designed/connected to other modules using a common bus
• enables new ideas, new circuits, module replacement, quick experimentation