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— 01-02/2015 — TELE-audiovision International — 全球发行量最大的数字电视杂志
Science -
ence.com) and RTL-SDR.com
). Also,
searching the Internet using
search strings such as “DVB-
T dongle,” “SDR dongle,” or
“RTL-SDR” will supply enough
hits to keep one occupied until
doomsday!
So, what can one hear and
“see” when firing up the don-
gle radio along with HDSDR or
SDR#? Well the fun certainly
commences once you have
your dongle running and an-
tenna attached; you’ll spend
many hours surfing the ethers
due to the prodigious width
of the radio spectrum that’s
available to you and the nu-
merous signals inhabiting the
airwaves. You may initially
suffer from option paralysis
as to what to listen to first but
my suggestion is to tune into
the FM broadcast band ini-
tially, as these high powered
24/7 stations are the easiest
to hear and known by many.
Try “getting your feet wet” (as
we Americans say) in this 20
MHz sliver of the spectrum (
generally from 87.9 – 107.9
MHz depending on your loca-
tion) and experiment using the
various user options in HDS-
such as Ebay .
com), Amazon -
zon.com ), or Nooelec (www.
nooelec.com). The best ap-
proach is to purchase the cor-
rect adapter(s) when order-
ing your dongle to minimize
additional delays in getting
started.
Software choice is the next
major and challenging de-
cision point as there are a
number of types to choose
from based on your comput-
er’s Operating System (OS).
Some are PC based using
Windows, others are Linux
based, and some are for the
MAC. The application soft-
ware and drivers required to
transform your dongle into a
Software Defined Radio (SDR)
receiver are easily obtainable
from the Internet and a ma-
jority of them are free. Again,
your OS will dictate what soft-
ware you’ll download. For this
article I am using Windows 8
as this is the OS for my Dell
Inspiron 15 laptop computer.
The two most common ap-
plications software are HDS-
DR (High Definition Software
Defined Radio) and SDR#
(a.k.a. SDR Sharp) and you
can find information on their
respective websites, www.
hdsdr.de and
com. These sites offer no-
cost downloads along with
detailed installation instruc-
tions, so carefully read the
specifications and recom-
mendations carefully prior to
downloading. Both of these
excellent programs not only
convert the dongle into a
low cost SDR (Software De-
fined Radio) receiver but also
come with a mind-boggling
array of user options such as
mode selection (AM, FM, SSB,
etc.) RF/AF gain, AGC (Auto-
matic Gain Control,) variable
bandwidth filters, spectral
analysis/waterfall display, in-
finite channel memory, vari-
able squelch, signal strength
(S meter), digital noise re-
duction, noise blanker and
choices of different FFT (Fast
Fourier Transform) displays.
Note that there are some
differences in user options
between the two programs
so do your homework and
investigate all they have to
offer and make an informed
decision. Having extensive
experience using both HDSDR
and SDR# I can unequivocally
state that these programs are
all you need to pursue endless
hours of radio listening en-
tertainment consisting of FM
broadcasts, police, fire, EMS
(Emergency Medical Service),
NOAA (National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration)
weather broadcasts, marine
radio, aeronautical, ham ra-
dio, pagers, railroads, busi-
ness band and utility radio
transmissions.
In this article we’ll not delve
into the specifics of how to
download the application
software, but basically you’ll
first download the driver from
the aforementioned websites,
along with the software spe-
cific for the dongle radio and
your computer’s OS. Another
excellent source of informa-
tion on how to set up a dongle
radio is YouTube -
tube.com) where you’ll find
countless how-to’s from hob-
byists around the world who
have discovered innovative
uses for this mini-receiver.
Other websites specializing
in this hobby are HamRadio-
5. Examples of adapter
connectors for external
antennas.
6. SDR # dashboard of local
New Jersey broadcaster
101.5. Notice RDS (Radio Data
Service) info above the spectral
display.