5 Cool Things You Can Do With An RTL SDR Receiver

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Here we have 5 cools things you can do with an SDR Receiver.
These 5 things are hand picked by me, but there are so many more cool things you can do with an SDR, depending on what versions you have!
Software used in this video:
SDR Sharp: airspy.com/download
DSD+: www.dsdplus.com
PDW: www.discriminator.nl/pdw/index...
Virtual Radar: www.virtualradarserver.co.uk/D...
RTL1090: jetvision.de/rtl1090/www/

[@cevansinz]

I'm 11 seconds in and I see you've made a complete list of the topics you'll be covering in this video. That's the moment I clicked like. I already do all the things listed and I very much appreciate your video getting to the point so I can move on to the next thing. Outstanding job.

[@moorek1967]

My dad once had a special base receiver that he called a "CB" but it wasn't a "CB", it was way bigger. He used it as a CB, but when he turned whatever dials he could pick up the signals from Wright Patterson Air Force. Of course, the antenna was pretty high up. One time while he was talking, he was interrupted by Wright Patterson who told him to immediately remove himself from that band.

[@j.d.schultzsr.9215]

moorek1967, I have been a ham since 1962, and I can tell you that there is nothing wrong with listening, but it is highly illegal to transmit on any military airband. Your dad was very lucky that he didn't wind up making GI shoes at Leavenworth for 20 years.

[@moorek1967]

@@j.d.schultzsr.9215 I know.

[@bodazaphfa]

@@j.d.schultzsr.9215 it’s never happened. The FCC does nothing more than send out letters of warning. There has been no one who has gone to the federal pen for violating FCC “laws.” However if someone had gone to prison for violating FCC policy, please let me know….but that’s probably not going to happen.

[@j.d.schultzsr.9215]

@@bodazaphfa You are correct about nobody going to prison for FCC violations. The worst court-imposed penalties are "Cease and desist orders" and fines. The American Radio Relay Leage (ARRL, est. 1914), in their monthly journal, QST frequently publishes FCC court proceedings.

[@dylanbrown3869]

​@@j.d.schultzsr.9215 As someone who use to work with the military as air traffic control, it is very common for us to hear other people and sports stadiums on our radios. Nothing wrong with accidents happening only time I've ever seen anyone say anything about it was when someone was doing it on purpose to cause issues by giving out false information

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

You can even use this USB Stick to pick up weather satellite images. You just need a slightly different antenna connected to it (like an old umbrella for example) and a software that decodes the raw data into an image.

[@wifinesesi]

Yeah, no one mentioned it. NOAA sattelites

[@NC-do7fv]

Is that how Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) works?

[@MarkGreen-pp3qy]

you got it get this wifi adapter called radio lads you for picking up long distance it's top of the line to im going to order it

[@MarkGreen-pp3qy]

oh you got to get radio lads wifi adapter for picking up long range frequencys

[@christopherkusek1362]

Quadrafilial antenna. Easy to make with cable/wire and PVC pipe.

[@reza.babakan]

I liked your manner when warned about loud noise for headphones, for this I'll support your Chan always, where and when ever and as much as I go.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

You’re welcome ! 👌

[@ruthlessadmin]

I just bought one specifically to join ADS-B Exchange but after learning what else you can do, definitely going to have to play around with it a bit first!

[@StringerNews1]

That's a nice and concise tutorial about SDR. Pity they didn't have these things when I was young and had all that free time. I got my first scanner more than 40 years ago, when the average SWL had no interest in what lay above 30 MHz, and buying crystals to get individual VHF channels was the norm. I remember getting my first synthesized radio, the Bearcat 100XL, and thinking how liberating it was! Looks like the "killer app" for SDR should be one that can record a whole band at a time. I heard once that ADSL carriers used a similar scheme to sample the entire RF band at each tower, and send the digital samples over a T1 backhaul to be demodulated in the digital domain. That was borderline magical at the time! It would be nice to have a running recording of the local public safety services, or to record every local broadcast radio station at once.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks! Well, you can actually do that. With a wideband receive sdr, like the SDRPlay RSP1A which does 10mhz band width, you can record as an I/Q file, which means when you play it back through the SDR software you can tune within the 10mhz bandwidth you recorded :-) maybe I should do a video on this subject. Thanks!

[@StringerNews1]

I could see on that time/frequency graph that your SDR was seeing several RF envelopes at once. I took a look at SDR years ago, and at the time the software was no doubt the limiting factor. Would i be correct in assuming that the "I/Q" has something to do with quadrature? Back in the day I was very conversant in the modulation scheme used for NTSC baseband video, YIQ. Where I live now, we have a lot of military aircraft operating, and I've been meaning to eavesdrop on their operations. That's one nut that I never got to crack; after my home town lost its air refueling wing, there wasn't much to hear in the upper air band. Even civilian air coms are less rewarding to voice-only listeners. As a sometimes pilot who knows full-time airline pilots, I know that most of the "good stuff" in air-ground coms is sent over TTY on company frequencies. With a SDR or two, it would be possible to track a flight in real time, and to decode ACARS, Company and any other TTY traffic. Add in transponder data, and you have a very detailed picture! I look forward to your future videos. Thanks for the timely reply!

[@ZeitoriHuiett]

This is cool. I remember having to use old moto bravo pagers for POSAG data. This seems so much easier. Thank you

[@thunderbirdlver]

Thank you for the tip about virtual radar. I have it going now and I love it.

[@jacksonabernathy1683]

Hey Matt great video. I would just like to note that air traffic control is on frequencies 118.000 - 136.975 108.000 - 117.975 is aviation navigational radio. I believe all other information is correct. Thanks!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks Jackson! There’s only so much my brain can remember lol.. Cheers for confirming this. 👌

[@jacksonabernathy1683]

Tech Minds To be honest, I had to look up what frequency ATC starts on

[@constantinocortinaalonso7017]

Jackson Abernat

[@MindFlareRetro]

Hi Matt. I primarily frequent retro computer channels but this video showed up in my suggestions and I enjoyed the video very much -- very interesting content and production quality is excellent. I'm in the same small KZbinr position as you, with about the same number of subscribers. For what it's worth, count me in as another sub to your channel.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks for your support and glad you enjoyed the video, I’ll be sure to check out your channel and sub back, thanks! 😁

[@MindFlareRetro]

Thank you, sir.

[@Kamel419]

I subbed, fantastic video! looking forward to seeing more (and thanks for the ample warning about the loud noise)

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thank you and you’re welcome! 🤪

[@ronb6182]

One thing an analog scanner cannot pick up is data. Ham radio is in a new era when computers are being used. I remember picking up hidden signals off the large satellite dish, and a long, medium and shortwave receiver. Subcarrier signals ruled the satellite dish. Now with computers signals are endless. Thanks for video.

[@anstef1485]

Excellent video! To the point and very informative. Thank you!

[@UncleBoogieRF]

Just got an RTL-SDR and this was very helpful.

[@jnevercast]

For those that don't enjoy the background static when using their SDR, turn on Squelch and adjust to your liking :)

[@ZeranZeran]

THANK YOU! So much better lol.

[@indridcold8433]

Although I do sometimes squelch the static, I grew up with analogue variable capacitors tuning a tank circuit to receive RF signals. Thus, I grew up hearing the white noise produced by the big Bang and appreciate it. One can pick out extremely weak signals from an open squelch. Sometimes, with the squelch on, the extremely weak signals can not be heard.

[@radioboyable]

@@indridcold8433 .

[@MrC-Hacking]

The squelch doesn’t work on SSB or CW

[@Majestiicc12]

LORDY thank you!

[@knoxieman]

another brilliant video :-) I can see whos videos I am going to be catching up on over the weekend.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks so much! I appreciate the positive feedback. If you have any questions or would like me to cover anything in future videos please feel free to drop me a message or reply to this comment! 👌

[@indridcold8433]

One must install a virtual audio cable to listen to DMR. The output from the SDR program must be routed to the converting software. Then the converter software translates it to analogue sound.

[@gortnewton4765]

Nice job of explaining, thank you.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Your very welcome! :-)

[@ethzero]

Just got my RTL-SDR V4 yesterday and with the help of this excellent video was running tracking aircraft in about 30 minutes! (For some reason lib-usb wasn't bundled but was easily found on the web and dropped in the rtl1090 directory)

[@ramv1564]

Hi bought Rtl sdr v 4. Can you suggest a general easy type antenna to use and is quick to build.

[@DanielLopez-up6os]

Thanks for the vid man, learned new stuff!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

You’re welcome dude!

[@TheAussieStig30]

Oh, these look cool! Better go off and buy one. I used to love listening to my scanner until everyone went encrypted but I have an airport close to me and a few more not too far away, plus quite often the rescue and fire planes and choppers fly over, so I’m really keen now!

[@walterwolf2027]

Great video, I was listening carefully to this right up until I figured out that you sound exactly like Maurice Moss from the IT Crowd, now I cannot listen without picturing Richard Ayoade narrating this :)

[@HappyDiscoDeath]

I have a dongle made by RTL-SDR, and it is indeed buckets of fun to listen to signals! I can pick up police, fire, ems, Ham radio, aviation radio, and of course pagers in Southern Idaho. I may or may not have decoded hospital pager data, which of course is Very Illegal in the U.S. from what I understand.

[@rommix0]

Don't know if it's illegal to decode it, but I definitely think it's illegal to share the decoded data. That data has a lot of PII (personally identifiable information) on it.

[@hamzah6251]

Well explained! I like your calm manner. Subbed!

[@__-io3fb]

I liked that video simply for the summary at the beginning. I wish more KZbinrs would do that. (Would be even better if you had the timestamp for each bullet points)

[@ShiryouOni]

Ah that's really cool! I especially like the radio to text for some reason, didn't know that was even a thing. Makes me want to build a Cyberdeck with an SDR receiver!

[@anispinner]

That is one of a Masterpiece Explanation

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thank you for your kind words 🙏

[@shortwavelistener]

Very useful information. Thank you!!

[@SKALEETRON]

Great videos man. Love your stuff my best wishes are with you man. Hope you get to 1k subs real soon.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks dude! Looks like It just passed 1000! :-)

[@SKALEETRON]

WE MADE IT

[@HartPhotoAndVideo]

Very well done! Thanks!

[@Aussat]

Very cool, thank you for your video, amazing what u can do with these things!

[@MysticMTL]

Thank you for the video. I was given an RTL SDR for Christmas and I'm looking at ways to use it, and this video is very useful, I'll have to try out a few of these things. Good Luck on your youtube quest. I am in the same boat as you. I run a small niche channel that earns enough to pay for itself, but they want to take that all away now. I'm not in it to get rich, but to them that doesn't seem to matter anymore.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

You’re very welcome! I’m in the process of creating a Part 2 to this video so keep your eyes peeled for that :)

[@ocdtechtalk]

I'm interested in everything. I don't know why. I've always just loved learning stuff. I subscribed. Thank you for sharing.

[@dandygrow]

Are you me?

[@bryanst.martin7134]

You Sir, have an intelligent mind. Most people limit the input to the Cranium. Lazy brains.

[@sethlavinder]

Shawn Tartaglia I was never a great student growing up but I started study of ham radio in 6th grade age 12! School never was top priority for me again once licensed. I’ve been in pursuit of new knowledge daily every day since! Love learning and studying electronics. I will never be an expert engineer but I’m gonna have fun trying

[@edstar83]

I'm the same. Normal people have one or two hobbies... Not me!

[@bilalyldz9647]

Me too.

[@dismaldunc]

well done! good no nonsense vid, many thanks

[@shawmahawk5714]

Subscribed! Thanks for the great content!

[@whitenorthstar]

Very interesting and well explained...thanks and subbed!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks John for your support and glad you enjoyed the video :)

[@nateofallnatea]

Subbed up man. Hope you make 10,000!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks dood!

[@WesPsWorld]

GREAT VIDEO!!!!!! I subscribed!!!

[@rogue_spirit]

Cool stuff! Thx!

[@WH6FQE]

Well, I have the Ham and digital covered, but I may have to look into SDR for the other options that I had not thought about.

[@mids44]

i enjoyed the well done representation thanks..

[@alexflores7652]

The Ham band you showed sounds like Packet radio for Ham Tx/Rx that you hooked up through your computer. I remember seeing it working back 1994 when I was in Phoenix, AZ while attending DeVry University. That was also when I got my Tech/no code license my callsign was at the time was KC7GHJ. I still have the original but I am sure it is dead since that expired in 2004.

[@kennethausten]

Decided to fire up my RTl device I bought over 2 years ago. I have built SDR devices and quite familiar. But this dongle is incredible. Way better than the FT450d I use for HF as noise level very reduced. Using Linux mint with sdrcube. It's incredible. May knock up a transceiver using this. Have an idea.

[@diskgrind3410]

Very cool stuff, you have peaked my interest!

[@prabhakarrao4922]

The fact that I’ve just subscribed should tell you what I think of this video!

[@zach0gr]

-Spectrum analyze some bands and do correct antenna installation or tweaking -Check later part of the bands you like -Do serious listening signal analysis -Understand on how fading works -share your dongle with others via SDR radio program-s These are a few more good ideas that you can do with a dongle and the proper programs

[@terryphilbin2494]

Consider a broad-band antenna, like a Discone, for vhf uhf bands. analyze your single-band antennas with a low-cost (comparatively) Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). LEARN A BIT OF RADIO ELECTRONICS..i.e. resistance/reactance, and how to incorporate that into using Smith-charts to match antennas to your receiver. hey...wait... your damn near ready to get serious about getting an Amateur Radio Licence (aka your ham ticket). Terry KG0DU

[@MikeHughesShooter]

Amazing,. Fascinating how much technology is at our disposal. The barriers of entry have lowered as far as cost, repurposing our computers, and available training such as this video. Thank you so much. It’s quite a chapter in humanity we live in.

[@brian.7966]

very good, really enjoyed this youtube program/

[@larryng1]

excellent video - I'm now subscribed

[@TheOnlyTominator]

Cool - thanks!

[@manuelcornejo7405]

Exciting...very..very much exciting

[@AlbertMilliron]

You do a great job explaining technology. enjoyed your video de AL7KT

[@brianjester123]

Outstanding video!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks Brian! :)

[@Gray06120]

hey man thank for the video, do you think that SDR receiver and be used to connect to a laser scanner.

[@Th3Mafia]

cool vid, wish i could have seen your dongle/antenna setup for these operations but i learned a lot here

[@travisPiru]

Very neat. What other applications did you refer to?

[@adityamahajan2289]

Really interesting, i enjoy video mostly that radio part.. Grete

[@LeslieAB30]

Thanks, I wondered what that pager noise was?

[@pwnmeisterage]

Many hacks, tweaks, and firmware/software tools for these R820T2 (and earlier R820T) tuner chips can extend frequency bands/ranges for the part which have simply been "locked out" to comply with FCC/government rules (to keep certain radio traffic away from common consumers). These cheap chips typically have a cheap piezo which drifts during sustained use so you need to install a temp-controlled oscillator (or cooling bulk) to do anything half-serious. A really neat little gizmo but don't expect high-end radio fidelity from a $20 dongle.

[@FrankGraffagnino]

this is awesome. what hardware do you recommend for this? and particularly decoding 433 MHz sensors?

[@sithticklefingers7255]

I have always wondered what those diesel truck signals on my uhf scanner were about. Guess I need to get an SDR.

[@jnevercast]

If you can output the audio from your scanner in to your PC using the Line or Mic input of the sound card, that is sufficient to use DSD+ to decode it.

[@damasuisse]

THANKS YOU for very good explication !.. Listening to the Ham radio sounded really interesting.! TKS and 73 MICHEL

[@scanfreq1972]

73 from KE5JPS.

[@OhMySack]

Good info. Just connected my first RTL-SDR dongle. That ham conversation, though 😖 kill me! NOW! Getting my Technician License next month. The more I here some of these conversations on some amateur bands, I begin to seriously wonder WHY?! 🙄😄

[@karlirvin5904]

I have a ham technician license and its basically useless unless you want to be a storm spotter on the RACES frequencies.

[@mikeshane2048]

Great content and subbed

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks Mike! :)

[@cplcabs]

Interesting stuff

[@MrMicoman]

phenomenal video. great!

[@damasuisse]

TKS YOU very good 73..!

[@tamyboy1]

love it, great video

[@Abcd123Alex]

This is interesting af, Subcribed

[@tinysolarshack9615]

Very nice!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks! 👍

[@kjamison5951]

Fascinating.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks! :-)

[@BI7JTA]

Thanks for share , SDR can also analysis MMDVM digital spectrum DE BI7JTA

[@Liberty4Ever]

Thanks for the video. I had already done all five of those using gqrx and other Linux software. I'd like to use SDR to snoop one of the four garage door openers that my mom's garage door can remember so I can make clone transmitters so we can have more than four garage door openers.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Check out my video on RPI TX and replay attack :)

[@AlexandreMarco7]

Blood hell that is MOSS voice (Richard Ayoade). "Come here ROSS listen, this is MOSS on youtube!" Big fan here from IT Crowd

[@Edward-it9cr]

what antenna did you use for the SDR?

[@donkmeister]

Interesting video, I would be interested in a follow-up video that shows the antennae you used for each of these applications. Antenna design is something I hadn't given much thought to until I tried SDR for 1090MHz for FlightRadar24 - for the first attempt I connected it to my TV aerial which worked absolutely fine... in a very narrow arc of sky!!! Yes, a highly-directional antenna for an omni-directional application! I then found instructions for a homebrew 8-element colinear antenna on the net, built that and it worked so much better.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

There's nothing like a properly tuned antenna for the given frequency that you wish to receive. Coliears are good because they can be quite wideband for the given frequency they are designed for which gives you some margin for error when homebrewing antennas. 1090Mhz is such a tiny wavelength so the antenna doesn't have to be big at all. I can cover antennas in a video as I have built many over the years, but I'll have a think about what content to have. Thanks! :-)

[@JETJOOBOY]

6:59 sounds like a ZX Spectrum tape!

[@ats-3693]

Haha wow, there won't be many who know what your even talking about! ZX81 was my first computer....

[@googlemail3462]

thx u for telling me how it sounds before it's decoded sounds like cw on high bandwidth

[@totaltwit]

I got one of these but couldn't do much with it, I think it was due to the aerial I was using, just the one that came with the Rx. I'd be interested in knowing about better aerials.

[@brightvalley]

How do you get SDR# to work with a NESDR SMARTee? I've used Zadig to replace the driver, but it doesn't show up as an available device in SDR#.

[@michaelkruger2736]

Very interesting thanks!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Your welcome 🙏

[@tomdeluca4861]

One thing you left out was that when connecting RTL 1090 to the SDR work on seeing planes as longs as they have transponder on. Lots of air craft such as military will turn off their transponders for many reasons. It doesn't actually turn your PC in to a radar station as it never transmits only receives.

[@scanfreq1972]

That's true. One thing that will come about in 2020 is the requirement of all aircraft (I'm sure military will be excluded) to use this beacon either 1090 mhz of the one in the 900 mhz range.

[@FFdo.]

which antenna type should use for each one? Im new to SDR

[@pauljs75]

#6. Host a WebSDR feed. Some of those are fun to listen to. But some regions are less represented than others.

[@davidaliperti]

can it be used to scan rf to check proper frequency to set radio mic without any interferences and dropouts?

[@MrGeoffHilton]

Good interesting vid, came upon it whilst viewing aircraft videos and a definite keeper, thanks. ps going over to ebay to buy one.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks for watching Geoff! Let me know if you would like me to cover anything in future videos that could help you out 👌

[@theLuigiFan0007Productions]

They're well worth the $10 or so I got mine for. If you live in a area that broadcasts digital radio as DAB+ or digital TV as DVB you can use them to receive the broadcasts on a PC. It supports hardware decoding of the digital TV and radio signals. I live in the US, and because ATSC is the broadcast type and HD channels are 6MHz wide, these are useless for TV here. It is possible to receive a SD subchannel, however you'd need to software decode the ATSC signal, which takes a LOT of processing power. Still works good for FM radio and for use as a SDR though.

[@sakishrist]

"If you are wearing headphones, be careful" Thank you!!!

[@7no696]

X of

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

+1 for the most important advice here. Especially when you tweak around with the squelch function.

[@bude8234]

6. You can test car key FOBs (the remote transmitter that locks / unlocks doors) without an expensive device or a trip to a local parts shop. For American cars, set it to 315 MHz, point the FOB at the small included antenna a few feet away and press one of the buttons. You should see some noticeable activity on the display if the remote is working, and will see nothing if it is dead. The FOBs they make for GM cars are particularly prone to failure for some reason, and I have diagnosed over 5 of them successfully to weed out dead ones and rule out other issues.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Great use! Thanks for sharing 👍

[@MikailStoner]

They have to be rather old. Any modern car will have a rolling code like 2A

[@totaltwit]

I got my Rx for this purpose, I could detect my keyfob squirting out a burst at 455MHz (or thereabouts).

[@Jbuchy]

@@MikailStoner true but there will still be some sort of signal to catch.

[@maxime_vhw]

@@MikailStoner This is irrelevant. It will still spit out a signal.

[@lewischannel84]

Do you receive with external antenna ?

[@bodazaphfa]

Great video!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thanks!

[@mickyjb2003]

The software that you show where do you get it from and is that the only software , drivers you need?

[@MrNavyman53]

What antenna are you using in this video?

[@DamithaNadeeshaWanniarachchi]

What about drone (dji) communication data. Like whether to go forward or back, up or down, their video link. That kind of stuff? Can it visualize that sort of data?

[@DamienBoath]

I purchased one of these and it came with a small antenna. I can barely pick up an FM station. What antenna did you use with your NooElec Mini 2?

[@marcogongora2503]

I love it!, I have one question, does SDR can decode a NOA earthquake signal?

[@LifeBloodMarketing]

Very cool.

[@thom3124]

I used my SDR dongle to align my DirecTV dish for max signal.

[@ericdee6802]

Would this unit be usable for scanning truncked 800+ Meg police radio (scanner).? Thanks for sharing your video.

[@jeffdubuque5622]

yes it will.

[@bryngerard4334]

Thanks for this video. I was an Infantry Signaler back in the 70's and used an A13 Larkspur that operated between 2-8Mhz. Do you know of a low-cost SDR that can work on these frequencies? This RTL SDR doesn't seem to.

[@bryngerard4334]

Looks like I found my answer ;)

[@abidinz]

does mode-s contain metorological-related data i.e humidity & temperatureof aircraft enviroment?