SDR Quest: Looking for Software Defined Radios for FreeBSD

penguinslayer

penguinslayer

I'm interested in a list of SDR's which are supported by FreeBSD. For example, "rtl-sdr." I have no experience with them but I will have if I can find one which works well. :) Are you a SDR user? If so, please say hello!
 
this is a thread I'm also interested in, thanks for opening the discussion.

for me the SDR support in FreeBSD was not great. I have two radio devices (HackRF one and SDRplay RSPdx) and been using them with urh, gnuradio and gqrx with great success in Gentoo.

in FreeBSD HackRF is supported. software wise the coverage is good, but drivers are lacking for some devices - like for the SDRplay.

I got two gripes:
- the hackrf port does not come with devd rules that would alter the usb permissions so that the device can be accessed by non-root users.
- the audio buffer gets corrupted when the radio gets tuned to different frequencies (at least in gqrx) - this needs an aplication restart to fix
 
I always wanted to play with the WinRadio devices when I was into trunk-tracking.
Any way to interface the USB WinRadio versions on FreeBSD?

I have been spying this for a while:
HamGeek ADI Pluto+
So much of this seems to be in our ports tree: libiio, iioscope gnuradio.
It seems like a nice setup.
 
I would like to know how flexible the SDR equipment really is.

Could you do 915MHz LORA over SDR? Perhaps a Wireless Access Point?

What are some uses beyond human audio? Data transfers or a sensor net possible? Networking?

A link to the above mentioned device:
www.sparkfun.com

HackRF One

This is the HackRF One, a Software Defined Radio (SDR) peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 1MHz to 6GHz.
www.sparkfun.com www.sparkfun.com
 
Phishfry said:
I would like to know how flexible the SDR equipment really is.

Could you do 915MHz LORA over SDR? Perhaps a Wireless Access Point?

What are some uses beyond human audio? Data transfers or a sensor net possible? Networking?
Click to expand...

for me SDR is a means to demodulate and capture a signal that is being transmitted over the supported frequency band. an RX-only 'wireshark for RF'. so reverse-engineering of unknown digital signals sent by sensors would be one of the use cases. it's also perfect for debugging RF devices and protocols if one happens to create such software or hardware.
another use-case would be a spectrum analyzer - you can even get a nice waterfall (signal strength over frequency over time) on a wide band.
I've seen examples where some use it to receive images from weather satellites - but I expect you need additional hardware to be able to do this.
or as you said, a simple radio to listen to.

if you have complex protocols (like LoRA which AFAIK is using frequency hopping) you should have a look at gnuradio and the large number of modules it can use - in this case google gr-lora - it seems to be able to demodulate LoRA signals and you can further feed that data into a logic chain of other modules that can do filtering, conversions, etc. I'd expect that one would be able to capture LoRA signals, decode them and perform an action based on what was received.

be warned, if you also want to send out a signal via a similar chain you need a radio that has TX capability - which most of them do not have.

I'd love to know what others are using SDR for.
 
Phishfry said:
This seems to be the dividing line in the USA. For transmitter you need DX license? Unless low power RF like Wifi or LoRA ???

I seem to remember wanting the Canadian version of WinRadio because of blocking frequencies issues.
Click to expand...
I do not know these details. you can ask sparkfun since they were located in Boulder, CO IIRC.

keep in mind that most TX capable SDR radios are USB 2 devices with at most rubber duck antennas that do not have a separate power source, so the TX will be quite localized. this ain't no pirate radio unless someone goes the extra mile and ties the SDR to an external amplifier.

also by default the device does not transmit anything, you have to explicitly set up an output chain to generate a signal.

If you simply want to receive and/or send messages over a specific protocol (like LoRA) you should be using a dedicated transceiver instead of an SDR. that way the RX/TX stages and the antenna will be optimized for the carrier frequency of your protocol and the setup complexity will be far lower.
 
I use an inexpensive, no name, light blue USB device (sold as a DVB-T receiver) with rtl-433 running on Alpine Linux to remotely read the heating oil level in my Mother's tank which is 250 miles away. I didn't try FreeBSD as I had an old 32-bit laptop at her place already installed with Alpine, I just went with that. It works well.
 
I can't remember for sure, but I think I heard/read that if you stay in unlicensed bands and power out put is less than (1/10)watt (in the USA) then you don't run afoul of FCC regs with regard to SDR experimentation, but don't take that as gospel.
 
vmb said:
light blue USB device (sold as a DVB-T receiver) with rtl-433
Click to expand...
I don't see that one but a search led me to this:

Buy RTL-SDR Dongles (RTL2832U)

Login to your account Where to Buy RTL-SDR RTL2832U DVB-T Tuner Dongles At RTL-SDR.com we sell significantly improved premium RTL-SDR dongles but keep our profits low and offer free shipping in order to maintain low retail pricing. We strongly believe that our V3 and V4 dongles are currently the...
www.rtl-sdr.com
From ebay $55 bucks but maybe clones.
vmb said:
250 miles away.
Click to expand...
What frequency is used for that range?

From the reviews NOAA Satellite maps sound nice.
 
If you're just curious to see what's out there, check out websdr. The first antenna (0.000 - 29.160 MHz) is really really good and gets ton's of stuff from Europe to North Korea to USA. It's pretty amazing. You will never get a signal so clear on that range with a regular antenna. Theirs is on top of an aluminum building. Their range is so large because they have a custom fpga.
Depending on where you live, SDR is boring. In North America, for example, there's like 5-9 religious channels, 1 music channel, and that's it.
You would need a use-case. If you want TX, the choices are really limited (and expensive). RX has no limit, but uncertified you're limited to 5-8W on commercial hardware (like a walkie-talkie), and nothing at all on experimental hardware.
Maybe look around where you live if there's a radio club. You can see what they do and if it's something you enjoy.
 
Phishfry said:
Could you do 915MHz LORA over SDR? Perhaps a Wireless Access Point?

What are some uses beyond human audio? Data transfers or a sensor net possible? Networking?
Click to expand...
In the past, we used an nrf9151** (dk) and a EG95EXGA (breakout) for cellular. Dead easy, just serial interfaces with classic AT commands. The nrf9151 is especially decent because its a very low power ARM32 MCU or you can just flash it with the AT Host passthrough. For a time we used it as the latter with 8051 and atmega328p MCUs but in the end it couldn't be beaten for power usage.

It was used for i.e: cattle tracking, child safety devices and AR minigames.

Some cheap LoRa devices are really impressive too. Dirt cheap and so easy for comms for so many use-cases.

** It was actually the predecessor (nrf9160) but the newer one is much cleaner.
 
I use (actually, used, the dongle died) a cheap RTL2832U dongle with rtl_433 to read all my wireless 433 MHz sensors (mostly temperature and moisture). I ran this under Linux on an old Raspberry Pi 3B+ for a long time. I have ordered a new dongle, when it comes, I shall reinstall that Raspberry Pi with FreeBSD, as I see that comms/rtl-433 is up to date.
 
waym0re said:
Depending on where you live, SDR is boring. In North America, for example, there's like 5-9 religious channels, 1 music channel, and that's it.
Click to expand...
Is that audio only? NOAA19 Satellite Maps sounded juicy to me. Perhaps worth trying SDR for. So they provide still frames of a weather map?

Can you give me tips on trying websdr. I tried several URL's but got nothing.
Should I be plugging URL's into GNUradio instead of LibreWolf web browser? I might have the browser clamped down too much.
I noticed most websdr URL had port numbers suffixed. Maybe my firewall needs to be adjusted.

After looking there I must admit I missed the line in my searches between receive only and tx/rx devices.

I see some interesting plugins from 10 years ago. Not what I was expecting. DoorCams and Volvo stuff.
github.com

GitHub - mberntsen/gnuradio-plugins

Contribute to mberntsen/gnuradio-plugins development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

When I read this about GNU-Radio I wonder what exactly they are talking about?
This extends past the basic signal processing libraries with external frameworks, standardbased wireless implementations,
Click to expand...
I was asking about LORA and 80211 wireless because I know they both have a layer of software to implement them into the OS..
What wireless implementations do GNU-Radio libraries support?
Can you play SDR provided video stream with it? Is that a thing?

One tiny radio.
 
Thanks everybody for the guidance. I just bought a Blue RTL-SDR stick off ebay.

I saw a "block" for "Digital Television" on the menu for GNU-Radio Companion and had to try this SDR stuff out.

I have an uhf/vhf antenna on a 8m tower for OTA channels.
I just replaced my ChannelMaster TV Antenna that was 18 years old and I found my replacement not worth a crap. Rebuilding the old one.
Signal Analyzer feature would be nice.
 
Phishfry said:
Is that audio only? NOAA19 Satellite Maps sounded juicy to me. Perhaps worth trying SDR for. So they provide still frames of a weather map?

Can you give me tips on trying websdr. I tried several URL's but got nothing.
Should I be plugging URL's into GNUradio instead of LibreWolf web browser? I might have the browser clamped down too much.
I noticed most websdr URL had port numbers suffixed. Maybe my firewall needs to be adjusted.

After looking there I must admit I missed the line in my searches between receive only and tx/rx devices.

I see some interesting plugins from 10 years ago. Not what I was expecting. DoorCams and Volvo stuff.
github.com

GitHub - mberntsen/gnuradio-plugins

Contribute to mberntsen/gnuradio-plugins development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

When I read this about GNU-Radio I wonder what exactly they are talking about?

I was asking about LORA and 80211 wireless because I know they both have a layer of software to implement them into the OS..
What wireless implementations do GNU-Radio libraries support?
Can you play SDR provided video stream with it? Is that a thing?

One tiny radio.
Click to expand...
Stuff like NOAA exists. It's not a still image, it's a live image as it scans over your head. You might need a special antenna for that, there are designs online. It's a polarized signal.
You can also detect walkie-talkies, and while I could never get it to work, modern digital signals are often unencrypted AX25, but require two dongles, since you need to monitor two frequencies. But a lot of modern communication, like firefighters and some police, use unencrypted AX25.
I was talking more about shortwave in general.

For websdr, it's just websdr.org . Click say the first (http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ ), then you tune in a station and listen. If you get a physical SDR, it's going to be virtually the same (or very similar) interface, but normally you can't see that wide. So you just click the pop-up box "play audio" and then find a station.

For example, 252.00 is Algerian radio, 13740.00 China, and there are thousands of channels. Between 500-1600 is regular AM. You have to setup the signal AM, since you're unlikely to have (USB and LSB are newer, and amateurs like them, but it's not quite prevalent. FM is also rare, except in the FM range). Channels might not match tags, change during the day (seriously), and there's a lot of jamming going on. Jammers are something like countries blocking propaganda radio by flooding the frequency with interference. Some signals are morse, some are data, some are encrypted.

tl/dr: check the arrows, make sure it's setup like this, play around with the mouse and bands, you can zoom, slide, etc.
2026-05-11_19-38.png
 
Used mine to pick up ADS-B (aircraft transponders) from aircraft flying overhead. Even that flaky dipole antenna it came with works, it's not a super antenna but for a bit of SIGINT experimenting it'll do just fine.
 
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