TN.Frank

Just found a really cool tool in Kali Linux called the "rtlsdr scanner", basically you can program in which freq. you want to scan through so you can see what's active. I'm currently doing a 24-1766MHz scan to find the "hot spots" then I'll go back and check em' to see what's there. Should make it a lot easier and faster to find interesting stuff to listen to with my SDR Kit.

So I'm surfing around and I find some music stations that come in under Wide FM(can't get em' with AM, go figure) down at 27.340.000, 28.150.000 and 49.835.000. FM, as far as I know starts at 88MHz and goes through 108MHz or there abouts. So, what are these stations doing down so low? Also, not to digress but I did catch some talk at 128.175.000-870 but only for a second. Need to keep checking in that range to see what's there. Also, after doing the rtfsdr scan I found a fairly strong and constant tone at 432.000.400, no idea what that is.

Also, does anyone ever remember using speaker wire as an antenna back in the day? We'd split it to 3 feet each side and hang it onto the wall so we'd have an overall length/width of 6 feet which is approx. what FM is. Then we'd run it into our reviver to pick up the signal. I wonder if I could get some eyelets and some speaker wire and rig something up to use with the stock antenna. I could place the speaker wire under where the antenna screws to the base with an eyelet then run it over to the wall and out each direction 3 foot a side and hang it using eyelets at each end of the wire with thumb tacks. That should bring in the signal better.

Found an older version of Self Destructing Cookies that I can run on Iceweasel so I'm good to go.

I have the same version of Linux on both my laptop and my Netbook and I set up Gqrx the same for both but the Netbook audio isn't on track with the freq. where the actual radio station should be and is all choppy sounding. I'm sure it's just a configuration tweak more then anything. My little Netbook should have enough "umph" to decode radio since it works fine with Clementine and streaming radio over the web. I just hope I can get it sorted out. Thanks for the reply.

Ahh, ok, so you just basically modify your stock cable to accept more antennas. Got it. I worked building cables at Motorola for Microwave Communications for Satellites so adding a connector to the end of the stock cable should be a piece of cake. My local Radio Shack should have the parts I need then I can connect the modified cable to whatever antenna I want. I've seen a few designs on the interweb, just need to figure out which one will work out the best for my needs. Thanks for the info.

So, the little antenna that ships with the kit is ok for local FM stations and stuff but I'd like something better so I can really pull in some signal. The connector on the dongle isn't a standard coax style like you'd find on your TV so you can't just run to Lowes and buy a set of rabbit ears and hook up to it. What are some of the parts a person would need to get to mod an antenna so it can be used with the dongle or what are some antennas that can be used? Since it's only going to be 24MHz to 1766MHz what will work? Thanks.

Yep, midnitesnake really tried to help me get things going but I guess to answer the original question "Now What?", Install Kalli Linux 1.0.6 and use their pre-installed Gqrx to get things up and running.

I have a little Acer Aspire One ZG5 Netbook that I put Kali Linux 1.0.6 on last night so I can try out SDR on it. I'd been running Point Linux 2.2(Debian 7 Stable with MATE DE) so Kali isn't any heavier with it's GNOME 3 Classic Mode DE, anyway, I digress. I'm running SDR with the Kali install on my HP/Compaq nc6400 no problems at all but the little Netbook seems to stutter quite a bit when I try to run SDR. Are there any tips or tricks to get it working right or is that little N270 1.6GHz Atom, even with HyperThreading just not enough to work with SDR? Thanks in advance.

That's one thing I like about Kali, it's Debian which is what my Point Linux 2.2 is/was. Not messed with many PenTesting Distros so I didn't know about logging in as "root" the first time so I could set up an account, now I do. I finally got Kali to install using the "install with speech synthesis" option. All the others would simply go into a loop and go nowhere. Either way, it's installed, I have all the coolness of SDR that comes pre-installed and I've installed Gnome Tweak Tool so I can set up the desktop the way I like it to be. Now if I could just get rid of Iceweasel and get the real deal Firefox. May have to see if there's a .deb package for Firefox.

So what are some of the buttons for. I know AM, WFM Stereo and Mono and kind of get NFM but what about CW-L and CW-U and the others? Anyone have a crash course in Gqrx and how to tune stuff in? I've look on the interweb but there's really nothing out there explain what all the controls are and what they're for.

Ok, so I got Gqrx working and I'm getting FM Raido stations fine but what are some other cool things to tune in to? Anyone care to give a quick primer on how to set up Gqrx to listen to stuff other then just "normal" radio stations? Thanks.

LOL, only "help" I could give would be to install Kali Linux 1.0.6. I totally didn't get SDR installed on my own even with some pretty good help from folks here on the forum.

Stuck that link in my SDR bookmark folder, thanks. I was having a heck of a time getting stuff set up until I installed Kali Linux 1.0.6. It has Gqrx already installed with all the Drivers and stuff for a few different dongles. The install is kind of flakey or maybe I'm just use to a simpler install like Ubuntu or Point Linux but I DID get it installed and it is working. If you have trouble getting SDR set up on your machine give Kali a look.

Ok, if you want EASY SDR then all you need to do is install Kali Linux 1.0.6 and BINGO you got it. I did the install earlier tonight and finally got to play with it. Gqrx opens up and I put in 102500000, my local Country Station and THERE IT WAS, Easy as Pie. For anyone wanting to play with SDR do yourself a favor and just install Kali Linux on your box and be done with it. Happy as a clam with my SDR, sad that the Broncos lost the Super Bowl, oh well, can't win em' all. B)

Finally got Kali LInux installed. They DIDN'T tell you that you have to log in as "root" the first time to set up a user account so it took me a while to log in. Once I'm in it looks a lot like Point Linux with it's MATE DE although I guess it's actually a GNOME 2 DE which is almost the same. Also it's more "Debian" then Point Linux so that I can't use Firefox, have to use Ice Weasel so Self Destructing Cookies are a No Go. Oh well, all in all I'm sure it'll work ok, just need to test the SDR now to see if it'll work.

I'm done. I'm going to do a bit torrent download of Kali 1.0.6 one more time and see if I can get it to install. If I can then great, it should have all the stuff I need for SDR. If not I'll just wait until someone brings out a .deb package that'll work with my dongle. Way too many hoops to jump through just to listen to a radio. I DO appreciate all the help but for now it's just becoming more work then it's really worth.

7.3

Going to give BackTrack 5r3 a shot. Downloading it as I speak and I'll boot to it Live to see what it has available for SDR.

Your Ubuntu release must be at least 9.04 to proceed Send success/fail info to sbrac.org?y Thanks darrell@linuxmonster1:~$ I told it "y" and it said "Thanks" and kicked me back to my Terminal prompt.

Ok, it's running, let's see what happens. Cross your fingers. Ok, ended up with this: Your Ubuntu release must be at least 9.04 to proceed Send success/fail info to sbrac.org? Since I'm running Debian it's not going to run I guess.

--2014-02-02 12:07:00-- http://www.sbrac.org.../build-gnuradio Resolving www.sbrac.org... (www.sbrac.org...)... failed: Name or service not known. wget: unable to resolve host address `www.sbrac.org...' This is becoming more work then fun. I'm almost ready to give up and just wait for someone to come out with a simple install to get SDR.

That's about it in a nut shell. Plus a few other things aren't installed that it wants/needs. I even restarted my system just in case it needed it to see the changes. So am I going to have to go back and install GNU Radio from a tarball or something to get all of it that's needed installed or can I use git? Why can't there be a simple .deb file that I could use to install everything I need to get SDR up and running. LOL

-- Build type not specified: defaulting to release. -- Extracting version information from git describe... -- Configuring Boost C++ Libraries... -- Boost version: 1.49.0 -- Found the following Boost libraries: -- thread -- system CMake Warning at CMakeLists.txt:151 (find_package): By not providing "FindGnuradio.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project has asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by "Gnuradio", but CMake did not find one. Could not find a package configuration file provided by "Gnuradio" (requested version 3.7.0) with any of the following names: GnuradioConfig.cmake gnuradio-config.cmake Add the installation prefix of "Gnuradio" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set "Gnuradio_DIR" to a directory containing one of the above files. If "Gnuradio" provides a separate development package or SDK, be sure it has been installed. -- Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE) -- Could NOT find GNURADIO_IQBALANCE (missing: GNURADIO_IQBALANCE_LIBRARIES GNURADIO_IQBALANCE_INCLUDE_DIRS) -- Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE) -- Could NOT find UHD (missing: UHD_LIBRARIES UHD_INCLUDE_DIRS) -- Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE) -- gnuradio-uhd not found. -- Could NOT find GNURADIO_UHD (missing: GNURADIO_UHD_INCLUDE_DIRS) -- Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE) -- gnuradio-fcd not found. -- Could NOT find GNURADIO_FCD (missing: GNURADIO_FCD_INCLUDE_DIRS) -- Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE) -- gnuradio-fcdproplus not found. -- Could NOT find GNURADIO_FCDPP (missing: GNURADIO_FCDPP_LIBRARIES GNURADIO_FCDPP_INCLUDE_DIRS) -- libosmosdr not found. -- libmirisdr not found. -- Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE) -- Could NOT find LIBHACKRF (missing: LIBHACKRF_LIBRARIES LIBHACKRF_INCLUDE_DIRS) -- libbladeRF not found. -- Could NOT find Doxygen (missing: DOXYGEN_EXECUTABLE) CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:165 (message): GnuRadio Runtime required to build gr-osmosdr -- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred! darrell@linuxmonster1:~/gr-osmosdr/build$

That's where it borked for me as well. I guess Quisk has a .quisk_conf.py Configure file that has to be set up and it's suppose to be a PITA. I'd just like to get this working, I'm sure we(really YOU) can help me get it figured out. Ok, even with all the GNU Radio stuff downloaded I still get a bunch of errors when I try the cmake ../ in the second set of instructions. I do have qthid and qthid 2.2 but they're for the Fun Cube and not my dongle. I also have GRC but have no clue as to how to set that up.