Re: dvb-t TV tuner as a SDR radio - interesting
Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 10:46 pm
This month's Silicon Chip has a great article on this.
Ordering the dongle is the easy bit. Downloading the software is the fiddly bit. It is not like PSK31 or WSPR etc where there's one software file only. Instead it requires 2 or 3 and there's a bit of work to set it up.
I didn't have much luck with some of the online instructions which can gloss over things; you can waste a night or two and get nowhere. Also if you're not careful you can stuff up your USB drivers (often fixable by deleting them, leaving the computer off for a while and restarting).
However the SC article covered every step and setup took maybe an hour or two. It's also very important to make up a SO239 - Belling Lee adapter to ensure the dongle has a decent antenna and not the supplied which are OK for the FM broadcast band only.
Ordering the dongle is the easy bit. Downloading the software is the fiddly bit. It is not like PSK31 or WSPR etc where there's one software file only. Instead it requires 2 or 3 and there's a bit of work to set it up.
I didn't have much luck with some of the online instructions which can gloss over things; you can waste a night or two and get nowhere. Also if you're not careful you can stuff up your USB drivers (often fixable by deleting them, leaving the computer off for a while and restarting).
However the SC article covered every step and setup took maybe an hour or two. It's also very important to make up a SO239 - Belling Lee adapter to ensure the dongle has a decent antenna and not the supplied which are OK for the FM broadcast band only.