SDR Quest: Looking for Software Defined Radios for FreeBSD

[Phishfry]

I have it working but I increased the permissions to 770 from 660 in my devd rule. Not sure that is OK but I had to try.
CubicSDR Audio Output now running well.
Time to recheck users.

 

[Phishfry]

pw groupmod audio -m $user_name

There is no audio group.
But you set me on the right path.
cat /etc/group

pulse:*:563:xorg
pulse-access:*:564:xorg
pulse-rt:*:557:xorg

With these three I have my permissions back where they should be to 660 in my devd rule.
pw groupmod pulse -m $user_name
pw groupmod pulse-access -m $user_name
pw groupmod pulse-rt -m $user_name

 

[balanga]

Should I be able to reproduce this on FreeBSD?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAiGlIJdhbw&t=8s

 

[tingo]

How would we know? Are you expecting us to watch that video to find out?
What's wrong with people, can you not write a question using words?

 

[balanga]

How would we know? Are you expecting us to watch that video to find out?
What's wrong with people, can you not write a question using words?

I have only just started using SDR and am having a hard time getting anywhere with it.

Running sdrpp starts up but there are so many options, none of which I understand, and I was simply wondering if any knowledgeable person could tell I could achieve similar results on FreeBSD.

If anyone is aware of a useful video for SDR beginners, I'd appreciate a link.

 

[balanga]

I have only just started using SDR and am having a hard time getting anywhere with it.

Running sdrpp starts up but there are so many options, none of which I understand, and I was simply wondering if any knowledgeable person could tell I could achieve similar results on FreeBSD.

If anyone is aware of a useful video for SDR beginners, I'd appreciate a link.

According to

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PzvGyBWeHM


to get started you only need these components to get started:- device, computer, software, drivers. antenna.

As far as drivers go, are they built in to the FreeBSD kernel or does each pkg come with them built in? And if each pkg has its own drivers would they all use the same drivers or could there be differences between different offerings?

 

[Phishfry]

As far as drivers go, are they built in to the FreeBSD kernel or does each pkg come with them built in?

The driver is /comms/rtl-sdr for the RTL-SDR sticks. SOAPY is some sort of software translation layer.

I have been using CubicSDR since I figured out my audio output problem.

Tuning it is similar to other SDR programs. You click up or down on the frequency number.

Jumping though the frequency graph seems to work well using Right and Left Arrow Keys. It is not constrained to frequency bands like other SDR.

No luck on importing a CSV file from rtl-scan. No program I use seems to take them like I thought they would. CubicSDR will import xml bookmarks.

I do have a core file from a CubicSDR crash but I think all of my SDR programs have crashed at least once...

 

[freezmi]

I already did this but don't know how to parse the output. The first two fields are date and time, but I can't figure out the rest.

2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 88000000, 90500000, 39062.50, 3712, -2.32, -2.28, -2.11, -1.96, -1.38, -0.77, 0.08, 0.36, 0.75, 2.31, 6.54, 3.88, 1.79, 1.61, 1.74, 1.88, 1.75, 2.02, 2.40, 2.04, 1.55, 1.76, 2.37, 1.88, 1.99, 1.99, 2.08, 2.43, 3.48, 2.52, 2.43, 2.66, 2.98, 2.9
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 90500000, 93000000, 39062.50, 3712, 1.36, -1.34, -1.07, -0.23, 1.30, 0.67, 0.79, 0.79, 1.23, 1.67, 2.41, 2.52, 2.96, 3.04, 3.73, 3.93, 3.76, 3.18, 2.31, 1.85, 1.79, 1.75, 1.57, 1.58, 1.52, 1.88, 2.38, 4.23, 5.09, 5.88, 4.13, 2.39, 2.42, 2.42,
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 93000000, 95500000, 39062.50, 3712, 0.78, -2.92, -3.30, -2.36, -1.02, -0.19, 0.56, 1.35, 1.21, 1.03, 2.30, 1.96, 1.82, 3.37, 3.17, 2.04, 2.39, 1.42, 1.24, 1.60, 1.12, 1.15, 1.06, 1.62, 0.94, 0.83, 0.86, 1.30, 1.64, 1.59, 1.30, 1.26, 1.44, 1.44
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 95500000, 98000000, 39062.50, 3712, -4.55, -4.17, -3.83, -3.49, -2.85, -2.30, -1.75, -0.15, -0.61, -0.38, 0.38, -0.52, -0.41, 0.08, -0.34, -0.13, 0.60, 0.07, 0.25, 1.55, 1.36, 3.46, 9.31, 19.38, 11.17, 3.58, 1.62, 0.79, 0.21, 0.24, 0.61, 0.07,
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 98000000, 100500000, 39062.50, 3712, -9.21, -8.68, -8.33, -7.68, -6.94, -4.65, -5.13, -3.79, -0.12, -1.09, -1.20, -3.00, -2.91, -1.56, -3.75, -3.64, -4.28, -4.36, -4.44, -4.79, -4.50, -3.61, -3.91, -3.69, -3.65, -3.74, -3.32, -3.94, -3.68, -2.
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 100500000, 103000000, 39062.50, 3712, -5.93, -5.42, -4.89, -4.27, -3.12, -2.84, -1.92, -0.24, 1.96, 7.94, 18.86, 13.08, 4.24, 1.43, -0.39, -1.14, -1.06, -1.45, -0.58, 1.27, 0.33, -1.34, -0.62, -1.46, -2.33, -2.51, -2.28, -1.25, 2.63, 0.33, -2.
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 103000000, 105500000, 39062.50, 3712, -9.07, -9.23, -8.26, -6.92, -4.71, -2.69, -4.85, -4.90, -4.27, -2.87, 1.20, -1.89, -4.07, -4.14, -4.28, -3.94, -4.27, -4.48, -4.79, -5.02, -4.58, -4.10, -3.68, -0.58, -3.23, -3.63, -2.57, -1.68, 0.53, 3.19
2026-06-09, 13:33:32, 105500000, 108000000, 39062.50, 3712, 2.69, 4.17, 1.84, 1.68, 2.33, 1.48, 1.54, 1.60, 1.65, 1.82, 1.75, 1.62, 1.83, 2.16, 2.33, 2.78, 2.10, 2.22, 2.25, 2.15, 2.09, 2.36, 2.76, 2.83, 2.62, 2.70, 3.41, 4.24, 4.81, 5.45, 5.30, 5.90, 21.41, 21.41,

this sample is invalid, it's right-most values are cut off before the proper end-of-line. either redirect rtl_power's output to a file or use it's export function (if it has one).

try to use the flatten.py script from https://github.com/CGrassin/rtl_power_scripts to get the list of the frequencies that show most activity. when you select the bin-size keep in mind that radio stations have a bandwidth of about ~100kHz.

 

[Phishfry]

I finished up work on my Quarter Wave Antenna with interchangeable elements. Soldering SMA element to tube tonight.
Shown here with three short ground plane elements for pictures. These will be 48" long for start. Maybe 2 different sets of three.