Controversial SDR: Plus 3-D Printing Stuff

It has been a while since an article has posted here, so this should be a good one involving a controversial SDR plus some 3D printing tips related to designing a simple enclosure for it.

Quick Summary:  Saving you a 20 minute video

Why is everything about price? For usually under $30, this SDR can be purchased on a few websites like Aliexpress and I am NOT encouraging you to buy this. Why?  It has infringed on the intellectual property of SDRplay in some regards. The driver used to get this and other similar MSI2500 chip based devices to work not made by SDRplay is needed. 

Only until recent versions of the driver, cloned versions of the RSP1 could use the driver to work with software easily like SDRangel, but that stopped after SDRplay API version 3.7.  I am glad that SDRplay built in some functions to only allow genuine SDRplay products to work with some of its software.  

However, since reference designs have been made public on the SDRplay earlier devices, anyone can freely assemble different semiconductors to replicate a decent SDR.  The device shown in the video uses separate band pass filters which is actually nice so the user can have spectrum specific antennae in use without the extra noise or complexity of electronic switching or the need for software to control that. This is why the SDR is so inexpensive.

Now that enough time has passed since I purchased these "clone" SDR devices and there are some improvements to protect SDRplay in place, now is a great time to get back to this.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805375754709.html

Any SDR based around the MSI2500 and MSI001 are unique compared to the R820T, 828D  and RTL2832U in that these support 10 MHz of bandwidth for around the same cost for those offering 3.2 MHz.  Another example is this one in a smaller form factor around the same size as the RTL-SDR devices, but with the extra filtering loses the wider frequency coverage above 1 GHz.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804660151348.html

There is an older video from 2021 where I showed how to get the SDRplay driver working with SDRangel below, but the new video instead focuses on an enclosure I designed for these 5 port SDR devices since I forgot to order them. The benefit however is a small case and simple design.

Here is the 2021 video talking about getting the SDRplay API to allow an SDRplay. Please note that this will not work any longer due to changes made by SDRplay, but there is an alternative version available called libmirisdr you can search for on your own or until I make a video about that.

Would you like the STL or OBJ or 3MF or STEP files for my case design? Please leave some nice and friendly comments in the video called Controversial SDR: Plus 3-D Printing Stuff  and will see what happens next. :)

How To: SDRangel Education Series (Focus on Release 7)

 

Long overdue are some filtered playlists for HVDN created videos, such as those focused on SDRangel software.

With SDRangel Version 7 Series, many changes have confused people on how to get started, so our part 3 series should be a good education source when using RTL-SDR V3 or V4 devices.

Part 1 of this series focuses on basic getting started or getting restarted if you tried SDRangel in the past and want to give it another look.  The use case also shows how easy it is to use multiple SDR at the same time to monitor spectrum very far apart, such as the 118-136 MHz civilian aviation band plus the 1090 MHz ADS-B used to track aircraft transponders.

Part 2 of this series is focused on how to reserialize your RTL-SDR device since the default is 00000001 and this will need to be changed to allow computers or other devices to recognize them from each other.

Keep an eye on the SDRangel Education playlist as more content gets loaded.  Since 2017, HVDN has produced 255 articles to date and 15 have featured this great software plus many others have made a passing mention about F4EXB's labour of love.

SDRangel has evolved so much since the v1.0.1 release back in 2015 and HVDN's official coverage started around version 3.6.5 in 2017.  As a follower from the near beginning and an educator across the evolution, if you need to know about SDRangel,  please consider us experts.

Also, check out the SIGpi project now which uses SDRangel as one of the core applications. This will become even more important as SIGpi gets ready for a huge update now that Raspberry Pi 5 is here.

SigPi 5.0: What is it and what does it do?

 

HVDN is happy to announce the release of SigPi 5.0, after lots of hard work by Joe Cupano NE2Z as the chief architect and Steve Bossert K2GOG as laboratory hamster.

SIGpi 5.0 is the root software of a much larger project which is focused on field based signal intelligence gathering and transmission toolset. 

The need for SIGpi comes from a lack of easy to upgrade and easy to use software defined radio applications that is not dependent on ready made images being up to date with current software versions.

SIGpi is not targeted at amateur radio enthusiasts, but any hobbyist (or professional) involved in RF spectrum related interests.

For secure environments built on a stock linux image such as Ubuntu 20.04 or Raspberry OS, the approach of the SIGpi based script based menu driven installation decreases frustration by the end user.

Yes, lets begin! 

As illustrated in pre release 5.0 and older versions, just navigate through the menus to install what you want. 

Newly added into SIGpi is support for the Ettus USRP lab grade SDR platform and also support for the LoRa bonnet which is the original cornerstone of the HASviolet project.

Right away we are showing why SIGpi is different because to explore the RF around you, it is important to support hardware tools with unique capabilities that also allow you to interact with those signals. More about this later.....

General and Extra SDR Applications

Six programs were chosen for basic utility, general and extra value added benefit as the core applications. You can install all, some or none of them but all were chosen for a purpose.

As you can see below, running RTL_433 can expose many signals around you, such as weather station transmitters or the tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) found on every car made after 2007.

The inexpensive RTL-SDR V3 when connected will automatically connect and start streaming data as shown, in this case every time a car passes by the SIGpi.

Also connected to the Raspberry Pi 4 is a HackRF which is shown using SDRangel to visualize the 315 MHz spectrum the TPMS sensors are using.

Being able to support multiple SDR devices for different or related tasks is important for signal gathering work.

If there is interest in connecting multiple RTL-SDR V3 or other related USB SDR units, you will need to serialize them so they are all treated as unique devices by the Raspberry Pi. More about RTL_EEPROM can be found here.

Another use case could be watching ADS-B traffic as it flows in as pure data via one RTL-SDR V3 at 1090 MHz and monitor multiple VHF AIR audio channels at the same time along with spectrum scope.

There are many command line based tools that can do similar things which are included in SIGpi such as rtl_adsb, dump1090, rtl_fm and many many more.  Simply, we want to show the core visual applications here first though.

Use Cases for SIGpi

It will be hard to define every use case possible via all the included software with SIGpi, but the benefits are that it is something modular and easy to expand to include new software at any time.

The SIGpi approach also offers the guarantee that the latest version of all included software is installed the first time you install SIGpi.

When you wish to upgrade SIGpi,  you can do this via just one application at a time or all of them.

Here are some select use cases to inspire imagination for SIGpi to be part of your signal intelligence efforts.

Receive Only Use Case Examples

• Explore analog or digital audio communications.

• Use more than one SDR tuned to 3rd harmonics of one signal to assist with direction finding.

• Analyze digital on off key (OOK) and many other signals to determine characteristics.

• Perform situational awareness of  airplanes and boats which transmit GPS data.

• Provide ethical use cases for multi-signal observations.

•  Receive non encrypted video based signals of analog or digital formats.

• Track and monitor high altitude objects such as balloons, rockets and satellites.

• Evaluate all forms of license free communications dependent on your hardware.

Transmit Only Use Case Examples

• Create different non-location based beacon transmitters for different test scenarios.

• Broadcast low power informational material for special events.

• Experiment with location based positioning with or without GPS.

 Combined Transmit/Receive Use Case Examples

• Experiment with re-broadcast capability of radio to radio or internet to radio signals.

• Share bidirectional  internet to radio based signals to fill in short range communications gaps.

• Provide training for "man in middle" type of threat vectors or ethical honey pot deployments.

• Create software defined transcievers for amateur radio via hardware like Lime SDR, RadioBerry, HackRF, QDX, etc

Summary & Support

The community of developers of all the included software makes SIGpi possible.  The HASviolet and Kismet programs are made right here in the Hudson Valley, so please consider supporting them if you live locally which also helps SIGpi grow.  All other programs we encourage the same appreciation.

The scripting and architecture behind SIGpi is well documented and commented on if you wish to explore how things are being connected by looking at SIGpi Git repository or by simply using your favorite text editor after you have installed SIGpi

Who SIGpi is NOT targeted to

The developers of SIGpi encourage ethical use of SIGpi and its suite of community software. 

We do not encourage malicious use of any of the included programs nor will we be providing assistance in implementing non-ethical use of any of the programs which can be used with appropriate hardware to do interesting things.

Thank you to our growing SIGpi community

We hope you enjoy the convenience of SIGpi.  Please join our growing list of stargazers for  SIGpi on Git to show your support.

Making SDR easy with SIGpi

 

Do you have a Raspberry Pi 4 that needs a new use?  Have you wanted to run your RTL-SDR V3, HackRF, Lime SDR or other SDR on something other than a dedicated computer?  Are you afraid of the word "dependency" when it comes time to compile applications on Linux? Would you like to be able to better sense the RF world around you?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, SIGpi is going to be worth paying attention to.  What Joe Cupano NE2Z has done is created a set of automated installation scripts and menu system to allow for easy automated installation of many popular software defined radio applications and optimized a few things to run on Raspberry OS 64-bit (or 32-bit) systems.

Quick Dare To Compare

Dragon OS is a precompiled Linux operating environment along with many popular SDR and related applications which is quicker to get started with compared to SIGpi.

The major benefit with SIGpi is user customization for what you wish to install as the main applications.  And, when it comes to to update applications like SDRangel or SDR++ as example, a script called "pusher" allows the prior version to get updated to the latest version without breaking dependencies.

Beyond many of the visual applications that may be of interest to those interested in "signal interception" work, many command line and other applications of interest to wireless network or amateur radio professionals are also included.

These are some of the user experience driven benefits of what makes SIGpi unique and beneficial to different users and for those with different levels of technical abilities.

Pre-Education: Getting Started with SIGpi

Go ahead and grab your favorite SDR device which is NOT one of the SDRplay devices and install a fresh copy of either the 32 or 64 bit version of Raspberry OS onto a new 32GB or larger SD card.

A few quick notes:

• Performance will be better under the 64 bit based Raspberry OS, so you need to decide that now.

• If you decide to use the 32 bit version, a program called Artemis will be able to better function

• Artemis is an offline signal analysis database application which has samples of different signals and frequency uses to help determine likely digital mode signals you may come across.

Once you have your fresh SD card ready with Raspberry OS version of choice, it would be a good idea to enable SSH support for later ease of access. 

Enabling SSH access on a Raspberry Pi likely is something our readers should be aware of already.

After you log in to your Raspberry Pi for the first time with the generic credentials,  it may also be a good idea to sudo raspi-config and also enable VNC support for further headless access.

SIGpi has intentionally turned off Wi-Fi interface, so you can also choose to turn that back on if you like while you are in raspi-config when connected over LAN.

A Few Easy Steps

There are only a few steps you need to do now that you have your Raspberry Pi 4 that is hopefully connected to the internet now to now move towards getting SIGpi installed and you have already completed the usual apt-get update and apt-get upgrade sequences.

Below in green are the commands needed via terminal to get ready for SIGpi. Details are also in the Git repository page here.

First, you will need to run sudo apt-get install -y build-essential cmake git .  This will add some other important pieces to your stock Raspberry OS installation.

Next,, you will need to mkdir ~/SIG && cd ~/SIG in order to create the directory where SIGpi will end up and also automatically move you into that directory for our next step.

Use this opportunity now, if not already, to make your terminal screen full screen on your computer which will be helpful for some later steps.

The third thing to run via your terminal is:

git clone https://github.com/joecupano/SIGpi.git

This important step will clone the Git repository for SIGpi to your Raspberry Pi.

Finally, all you have to do now is cd SIGpi so that you can run the set up script for SIGpi.

./SIGpi_installer.sh

Now here is where the fun begins. Once you run the ./SIGpi_installer.sh and if everything was followed up until this point, you be greeted with a screen like this now in your terminal:

After using your tab key to allow you to hit enter, your next step will be to select the base applications for your installation.  

A 32GB SD card at minimum is suggested for further expansion, but if you wish to use a 16GB card, you can select the options in this article to help keep your installation a little smaller for now.

The reason why we are providing an option for two versions of GNUradio is based on user preference.

 Some people may prefer to still use the older 3.8 version since the architecture for 3.9 changed a bit. For most people who are interested in the more visual applications for SIGpi,  either is fine and 3.8 may be fine for now.

In this step, your base visual SDR applications can be installed and we suggest getting familiar with SDRangel and also SDR++.  Lighter weight applications like GQRX and CubicSDR are provided as options for convenience.

This step will be of more interest to amateur radio people interested in some digital modes specific to those activities mostly. 

You can decide to always come back to install these if you like, but they are all pretty small and could not hurt to include all five in your initial installation.

This selection of useful applications will appeal to different people for different reasons. Some may already be familiar to some readers, but Artemis might be new as well as the HVDN HASviolet project which we snuck in here as well.  

At any point after initial installation you can add these, but if you have a 32GB card or greater, it is more than ok to just select all of these and move on.

It is worth noting that the popular rtl_433, dump1090, radiosonde and a few other command line applications are already going to install automatically since they are small, but we chose to only highlight the larger applications in this menu tree for installation.

And now you are ready to hurry up and wait. Once you move past this menu, you will start to see a flurry of activity taking place with critical milestones highlighted during installation to know what steps you are up to.  

Depending on your options selected, the total installation for the first time will take up to three hours in total.  As the SIGpi progresses you will see colored bars like above letting you know what is comping up and what has just finished installation.

If you decide to include SDRangel, the wisdom files included for FFT will be worth the wait given all the underlying dependencies that F4EXB and his community have built into this great application. 

The Artemis application and hamlib will also take a while, but as long as you can leave your Raspberry Pi connected to the internet and you can check in on it from time to time via your terminal, everything should run pretty smoothly. 

Installed. Now what?

Suggestion from here is to just VNC into your Raspberry Pi and you will be greeted with some localization steps for Raspberry Pi like setting up a keyboard, time zone and warned that now is a great time to change the default password from "raspberry" to something else.

Once you have a look at the menus in the Raspberry OS, you will see many fun things to play with and explore signals around you.

A last recommendation before we close this article is that it is a good idea to plug your SDR into the Raspberry PI 4 USB 3.0 port (the blue ones!)  to get more bandwidth for your SDR.

Perhaps starting with SDR++ or SDRangel is what got you excited, so hope you enjoy SIGpi.

When it comes time to update to a later version of the applications installed, you can learn about how to do that by visiting the SIGpi Git repository.

Future video, article, etc coming up to help better understand how to actually use the software and also how to update things when its needed with SIGpi. 

https://github.com/joecupano/SIGpi

SIGpi: The automated way to install SIGINT

 

If you are interested in signal interception (SIGINT) and the convergence of amateur radio with non-amateur radio wireless interests,  SIGpi might be worth a look.

What makes SIGpi different than DragonOS is that you can control what gets installed versus just running an image. The benefit of DragonOS is a much faster time from download to actual use compared to SIGpi, but that is ok.

Both projects have one thing in common, which is making it easier to enjoy the world of software defined radio and focusing on things not just on specific spectrum or applications.

How easy is this?

In the case of SIGpi, it is optimized to run on a Raspberry Pi and will compile all the correct dependencies to allow popular applications like SDRangel to run along with pre-configurations needed for different hardware SDR like the HackRF or Lime SDR among others.

Getting Started

As long as you are running a Raspberry Pi 4 and a fresh install of the latest Raspberry Pi OS or Ubuntu RPI,  here is all you need to do:

• Login as Pi (or ubuntu)
• Create a directory in your home called source and switch into it
• Clone the SIGpi repo
• Run SIGpi_installer.sh
• Follow script instructions.

To make things more clear, here are the steps you can simply copy and paste.

1. sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git
2. mkdir ~/source && cd ~/source
3. git clone https://github.com/joecupano/SIGpi.git
4. cd SIGpi
5. ./SIGpi_installer.sh

How long did you say this takes?

Even on the latest Raspberry Pi 4,  compiling software still can only happen as fast as it can happen. This is why Joe Cupano NE2Z chose to make an easy guided menu system to allow you to install only what you want and even give you time estimates for it to install. 

Aside from the default options already selected, you can further customize what else you wish to start with. Once you are done, now its time to hurry up and wait.

What is included in SIGpi?

The current list of included and validated software included in SIGpi can be found at https://github.com/joecupano/SIGpi.    It is worth mentioning that SIGpi was a necessity for a wider project called SIGbox which is covered separately. 

An example during the install script relating to different types of
radiosonde signals which can be decoded using appropriate
hardware, antenna and SIGpi. 

Can you monitor multiple channels at the same time with one SDR?