Introduction The NanoVNA is a very compact and useful instrument that can be used to test a variety of antennas (Ref.1/8). So far I have tested most of my antennas with the exception of a few whip antennas that are used with the RTL-SDR. In this post I am testing a compact VHF (136-174MHz)/UHF(400-470MHz) antenna.… Continue reading VHF/UHF Whip Antenna Testing with NanoVNA
RTL-SDR V5 on GNU Radio
Introduction Recently I received a lot of questions about the RTL-SDR V5 and how to get it working on GNU Radio so I decided to get one and try it out. These are my results. If you are using the RTL-SDR for the first time, you have to install the Windows driver (Ref.1). HF Reception… Continue reading RTL-SDR V5 on GNU Radio
Splat! – Antenna Patterns
Introduction Splat! (Ref.1) is a very versatile propagation prediction program that I discussed in several previous posts. In my first post, I looked at installation on Windows and Linux, how to obtain the digital elevation data files, create .qth & .lrp files, and run a simple point to point analysis (Ref.2). In the second and… Continue reading Splat! – Antenna Patterns
Marine GMDSS/NAVTEX MF Decoder
Introduction In previous posts I looked at various aspects of decoding BFSK GMDSS/DSC using GNURadio, SDRangel, Multipsk and Scicos. In the last post I used a BPF Non-Coherent GNURadio FSK decoder to decode random data (Ref.1). In this post I will use the same decoder to examine a short GMDSS/NAVTEX BFSK message (Ref.2). BFSK BPF… Continue reading Marine GMDSS/NAVTEX MF Decoder
OpenPlotter3 – AIS & GPS on RPi3B
Introduction Recently I revisited OpenPlotter after a two year interval to see what had changed in the latest version 3 (Ref.1/3). I tested the Starter and Headless images and setup AIS & GPS on RPi4/OpenCPN. In 2021 I had looked at various aspects of version 2 (Ref.4/5). In this post I will look at OpenPlotter3… Continue reading OpenPlotter3 – AIS & GPS on RPi3B