HFU HF Underground
Technical Topics => SDR - Software Defined Radio => Topic started by: K5KNT on March 29, 2013, 1320 UTC
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I currently have the NooElec R820T USB dongle and I am awaiting delivery of the Ham it Up converter. I'm running SDR# on my mid-2011 iMac using Parallels. I'm still in the early stages of learning the software, but I was wondering if there is any way to set up unattended recording. I would like to be able to record while I am at work or asleep, but don't want to leave the recorder running all that time.
I guess what I would like to do is schedule the recording to start and stop at a certain time. Does anyone do this? If so, is it specific to a particular piece of SDR software or is there a script or something that will do this?
Thanks,
Kent
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I do this with SdrDx, which I believe does not support the RTL SDRs.
I have a project on the back burner to write a small app to make the RTL SDR appear like an RF Space SDR, so it will work with SdrDx. I hope to be able to get back to it.... eventually.
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Being able to do scheduled recording is a function of the software that you are using with the SDR hardware. I do not think SDR# supports this function. I do not know of anything Mac native that does. The software that I know of that does support scheduled recording would be SpectraVue, HDSDR, SDRDX, and SDR-Radio Console. Possibly HDSDR and SDR-Radio will support your RTL SDR, so you might give them a try (I have heard they do, but never confirmed it for myself).
T!
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SdrDx does support recording I/Q files, and is native for the Mac.
I don't think it does scheduled recording, but I just leave it running overnight and on the weekends.
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Being able to do scheduled recording is a function of the software that you are using with the SDR hardware. I do not think SDR# supports this function. I do not know of anything Mac native that does. The software that I know of that does support scheduled recording would be SpectraVue, HDSDR, SDRDX, and SDR-Radio Console. Possibly HDSDR and SDR-Radio will support your RTL SDR, so you might give them a try (I have heard they do, but never confirmed it for myself).
T!
Thanks. I was able to get HDSDR to recognize my RTL SDR, but I could not get any audio, even from a local FM station. SDR# seems to work fine running with Windows 7 in Parallels.
EDIT TO ADD: I also didn't like that the waterfall in HDSDR "flowed" from bottom to top. I couldn't find a way to change that.
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SdrDx does support recording I/Q files, and is native for the Mac.
I don't think it does scheduled recording, but I just leave it running overnight and on the weekends.
How large of file to you get by leaving it running overnight? I don't think SdrDx will support my dongle. I'll download it anyway. I guess I may have to wait until I can get a different piece of hardware.
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Right, it does not support the RTL dongles (yet).
The recording file size depends on the sample rate you use. Take the sample rate, multiply by the number of bytes per sample (2 for the RTL dongle I believe) and you have the bytes per second. Then multiply by 3600 to get bytes per hour, then guess how many hours you will record. Then buy a larger hard drive :-)