On 12/2/18 3:47 AM, Colin Rowat wrote:
I'm looking for an interesting Christmas present for my sons (ages 13
and 10) and wondered about software-defined radio. We're reasonably
tech literate, but don't have any SDR experience.
I'd thought that it could be interesting for them to see what sort of
signals are passing through the air around us, and even identify and
listen to some of them.
I'd love something that:
1.is easy to use and can give an immediate reward out of the box -
e.g. tuning into something they couldn't otherwise hear, or
transmitting to walkie-talkies in the area.
2.allows room to grow, so that they can do more serious things with it
if they're interested
3.can be used from an Android phone or a Raspberry Pi (nice, but not
essential)
4.not too expensive
Thus, I think I'd need both SDR hardware and an intro-level book/manual.
I'd be grateful for any suggestions about how to get started with SDR.
Thank you,
Colin
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Collin,
Up until about two weeks ago I was looking for exactly what you're
asking for... And I've been a/ Electronics/radio/Linux "person" since
high school in the 70's!
While How-to-obtain/build is great... And too much of the on-line stuff
stops at how to obtain/build OR dives directly off into deep
mathematics. Neither of those are very useful in how to use/get started.
Then I found this set of tutorials on YouTube to be extraordinarily
useful:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRovDyowOn5F67h9nHN4RWqmvXyt18uj8
The cheapest SDR you can lay you hands on is an RTL-SDR v3 at about
$25... It can ONLY be a receiver, but you can get going listening. It
was my first.
My second was the SDRplay one. I got rid of it as it's Linux driver was
closed... It was only available as a binary for very particular Linux
distros and they weren't the ones I was using. They spent a year saying
they would build for other distros and never did... Vexing.
I then found the BladeRF, which I like but I have it in use in a
semi-dedicated role.
I also play around with the ADALM-Pluto from analog devices. This one is
interesting in that it also has a built in Linux host
My next, when I have spare money, will probably be a LimeSDR or
LimeSDR-mini
Good luck!
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