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Author Topic: NooElec RTL-SDR, Ubuntu, and MacOS X....  (Read 8247 times)

Offline IQ_imbalance

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NooElec RTL-SDR, Ubuntu, and MacOS X....
« on: March 19, 2014, 0141 UTC »
Some trials and tribulations.  Bought a NooElec RTL-SDR off Amazon, and configured an old Powerbook G4 with Ubuntu 12.04 to run it.  Installed gnuradio, rtl-sdr, etc from source  (miraculously) without issues.  Was able to build some simple radio/fft devices with gnuradio-companion but everytime I tried to demodulate a signal I received volk memory errors.  Rtl_test shows the dongle is working, but rtl_fm wouldn't demodulate wbfm signals to anything intelligible (static was all i could make out!). 

At this point I was fearing I had a deaf RTL-SDR, and decided to at least try it on a different hardware/software combo to be sure.  Installed Gqrx on an intel Mac running 10.7...and BINGO.  It was pulling in WBFM (and NFM) just fine. 

So...some ups and downs.  Haven't tried using the dongle with Gnuradio on the intel mac yet but that's in the near future.  Not sure what to do about my Ubuntu PPC system yet....I might try downloading individual components and recompiling.
LOG/NE-SW unterminated BOG/DJ-130/800Mhz Yagi
AFEDRI SDR-Net ICF-SC1 SDS-200 various RTL-SDR
Central MD

rdla4

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Re: NooElec RTL-SDR, Ubuntu, and MacOS X....
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2014, 1958 UTC »
My compliments----you got way further along with gnuradio that I ever did.  I ran gqrx as my "way out of this mess" and it worked fine. Not a lot of bells and whistles---but it worked. I was hoping that gqrx would move along some more, but it has not yet.

Offline ChrisSmolinski

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Re: NooElec RTL-SDR, Ubuntu, and MacOS X....
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2014, 2000 UTC »
I've been trying to modify rtl_tcp (under Mac OS X) to act as a SDR-14/IQ type server, so SdrDx can use it. It sorta works, but data is getting lost somewhere along the way. Hopefully I will have some time to get back to the project.
Chris Smolinski
Westminster, MD
eQSLs appreciated! csmolinski@blackcatsystems.com
netSDR / AFE822x / AirSpy HF+ / KiwiSDR / 900 ft Horz skyloop / 500 ft NE beverage / 250 ft V Beam / 58 ft T2FD / 120 ft T2FD / 400 ft south beverage / 43m, 20m, 10m  dipoles / Crossed Parallel Loop / Discone in a tree

Offline IQ_imbalance

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Re: NooElec RTL-SDR, Ubuntu, and MacOS X....
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2014, 0007 UTC »
might have to hang up the hat on the old G4 laptop.  None of the linux distros are doing much in the way of PPC these days....
LOG/NE-SW unterminated BOG/DJ-130/800Mhz Yagi
AFEDRI SDR-Net ICF-SC1 SDS-200 various RTL-SDR
Central MD

 

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