The Hobbyist's Guide to the RTL-SDR: Really Cheap Software Defined Radio

by Carl Laufer

Available for PC, Mac, smart phones, tablets or Kindle devices A comprehensive guide to the RTL2832U RTL-SDR software defined radio by the authors of the RTL-SDR Blog. The RTL-SDR is a super cheap software defined radio that grew from hacked DVB-T TV dongles. This book is about tips and tutorials that show you how to get the most out of your RTL-SDR dongle. Most projects described in this book are also compatible with other wideband SDRs like the HackRF, Airspy, LimeSDR and SDRplay. What's in the book? Learn how to set up your RTL-SDR with various free software defined radio programs such as SDR#, HDSDR, SDR-Radio and more. Learn all the little tricks and oddities that RTL-SDR dongles have. A whole chapter dedicated to improving the RTL-SDR's performance. Dozens of tutorials for fun RTL-SDR based projects such as ADS-B aircraft radar, AIS boat radar, ACARS decoding, receiving NOAA and Meteor-M2 weather satellite images, listening to and following trunked radios, decoding digital voice P25/DMR/TETRA signals, decoding weather balloon telemetry, receiving DAB radio, analyzing GSM and listening to TETRA signals, decoding pagers, receiving various HF signals such as ham radio modes, weatherfax and DRM radio, decoding digital D-STAR voice, an introduction to GNU Radio, decoding RDS, decoding APRS, measuring filters and SWR with low cost equipment, receiving Inmarsat, AERO, and Iridium L-Band satellite data, and many many more projects! Guide to antennas, cables and adapters. This book is updated every year to ensure information is fresh and up to date. Updates are available for free for all customers. To update the book you must manually contact Kindle support and request the update. Last updated to edition 7 on 19 February 2018.

Genres: Technology, Reference, Nonfiction, Stem, Technical

742 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 14, 2014

Reviews

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview and resource links, with lots of howtos.

Good intro to SzdR with the RTL for the ham and non-ham alike. Loved the project/idea focus for the book, with recepies of things to do.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than just a collection of blog posts, the author put together a cohesive set of tutorials across a variety of platforms and tools.

[Nick Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

love their web page, but this shouldn't have counted as a book

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written for the tinkerer. If you're willing to get under the hood a little bit with regard to command line software and drivers and the like, then this book and the RTL dongles are for you. It's been awhile since I read it, and my dongles are all V3. I'm unsure if it has been updated to include any information on the new V4 dongles. Also, I'll admit, some of the installs and use cases presented are beyond my skill level.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great tutorial for using on the RTL-SDR dongles. There are tons of links to find tutorials or to expand on the information in the book. It tells you recommended equipment and programs to use depending on what you want to listen to with the dongle. This books is well organized, well presented, and extremely helpful to get started.

[Benoit Ricard · Rating 5 out of 5]

From zero to cruse speed simply

Just got a SDR receiver and looking for easy to more challenging project and found this book. Can we use « page turner » for a tech book, this one certainly. Well done but it may become a great project ref book if I could find a topic or table of content.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, learned so much!

Seems like a very good introduction to all things SDR related! I had no idea there were so many things to listen to. Also answered a lot of questions I had about antennas, filters, and cable runs. This will continue to be a resource going forward.

[THOMAS SCHOFF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of information, good reference book.

Not really a beginner’s book but not too technical either. A very useful book to use as a guide to find information that will let you go as deeply into SDR as you want.

[Melen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good information in here. Covers a lot of things you'd want to do with a SDR.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must-have resource

Concise, easily digestible, plenty of links for "if you would like to know more", must have for anyone new to sdr.

[Dean Domogala · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed. only redeeming factor

I would have saved a lot of time by
Going straight to the 3 pages of links on SDR in the appendix .

[A G Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Perfect For a Novice

This takes a novice through the whole set up. It is well illustrated. Of all the books on the subject this is the best.

[Ryk Mooring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what I needed. a great resource.

Yes I’m more confident after reading this book. Great book for beginners like me and also for the more experienced operators.

[William Freund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid baseline for details surrounding SDR

Can be either your first introduction or resource for digging much deeper into this relatively recent topic. Includes links to let you explore many topics while keeping the overall package quite readable.

[Floyd Larck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great reference for those getting into SDR no matter if you're a ham radio operator or not.

[Lester Cockram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro software defined radio reference, many illustrations, references, troubleshooting, software setups and Url's.
Author provides eBook upgrades to print purchase customers.