SDR Connect - A New Multi-Platform SDR Software From SDRplay

[Music] November 4 Charlie Charlie Oscar from golf Bravo 23 Yankee Oscar Tango hi and welcome back to another tech mines video now this video we'll take a look at SDR connect Preview 2 which is a new SDR software package created by SDR play now if you're not aware SDR play design and manufacture the RSP range of software defined radios and for some time now their Flagship SDR software is called SDR Uno SDR Uno is a fantastic piece of software with many features for professionals and newcomers however it only runs on Windows of course there are a bunch of you that like to either use Mac OS or even Linux so SDR play has started developing a multiplatform SDR package that's designed to be used with the RSP SDR receivers now I wouldn't say that SDR connect is a finished and highly polished product at the time of making this video it's more in the latter end of development phase but it is still extremely usable and with its simpler to use graphical interface and SDR Uno it's a bit easier for those newcomers to get to grips with SDR software now the first Improvement which I can see over SDR Uno is that where you select which device to use you can click the little refresh button if you forgot to plug in your s receiver before starting the application now from this little drop down you can select an IQ file input meaning you can play back a previously recorded IQ session now to the right of this is where we have a plus button which allows you to add more virtual receivers which is great if you are to say monitoring the digital modes of a particular band and rooting its audio off to something like ws jtx and then on the other receiver you can listen to say SSB voice voice now this is possible due to each receiver being able to rout its audio to different endpoints now the little Cog icon next to that plus button allows you to change the sample rate antenna port and make adjustments to the RF gain and if AGC here you can also turn on things like bias and enable the hardware filters which are built into the RSP devices the next icon along which looks like a little display monitor allows you to change how the waterfall and scope looks and feels changing the fft size reference level base level and gains can all be done from this little drop down now to zoom in and out on the Spectrum there are two magnifying glass buttons at the top now this will zoom in and out from where the vfo is selected on the waterfall now the main volume control out is also found to the right of that Zoom control now to the right of the waterfall and scope we have a hideable panel which is sectioned out into different features of the software the control section at the top has a few options where you can change the mode of modulation select a bandwidth preset filter change the tuning steps when using the mouse wheel to change frequency and also allow step snap on the Spectrum now the bandwidth can manually be changed using your mouse on the ORS SP window on the top right if none of the preset filters suits your needs now most SSB voice Transmissions are around 3 khz or maybe just under but some folks like wider audio for their es SSB experiments the next section down caters for AGC and scrt settings however there are a couple of preset AGC profiles for you to choose from which will most likely cater for your needs now these little option buttons I do really like they have kind of an iOS F to them and if you have an iPhone or iPad you'll know exactly what I mean now the audio section allows you to choose where the demodulated audio should be sent to and 99.9% of the time this will be to your computer sound card and speakers but for those of you that like to use sdl software to decode digital modes then you have the option to rot the audio to other applications or to other audio drivers like virtual audio cable there is some limited audio filtering also available here with a slider control for am and SS below Cuts now the next section down is band control each drop down has its own preset range for the given band now handam radio bands are all there so just click on the band you want and the vfo will retune to that band for you a new addition to Preview 2 is the keypad but for some reason it just wasn't working for me on this version well not how I expected it to work anyhow the last section at the bottom titled options allows you to change how the user interface looks also you can change the waterfall palette here to suit your needs there are some presets available but I do hope in the future that these can be more customizable now the Orcs SP on the top right is like a zoomed in section of where the current vfo is tuned to now it's this section where you can also assign Notch filters simply by clicking within the vfo selection and then if you want to remove them just right Mouse click on them the bottom right section titled recording allows you to either record the audio output from the software to a WB file or you can change the output type to IQ which means it will record the entire bandwidth you can then play back this IQ file at a latest stage and even tune around and change mode as if it was a live broadcast now just be careful with those IQ files cuz they're absolutely huge so don't forget to stop recording when done now let's just flip to the bands and take a quick listen for a moment and I'm located in Sutton coldfield in the county of West Midlands um it's uh it's a pleasure to work at so many uh Yota stations this year and I I hope you're having great fun working the the bands there k um golf s my H houseo from G Bravo 23 Yankee OB Tang okay that's no problem got this time yeah you're five and seven with me 57 into Doncaster Del Romeo as mentioned earlier this software has multiplatform support so just let me quickly show you how to install it on Linux or UB 2 to be precise so first you just download The Run file from the SDR website then you right Mouse click on this file and make it executable simply double clicking on the file to run it and then just follow the onscreen prompts once finished SDR connect will be installed and it will be available from the menu now the screen may look a little glitchy in this particular recording but this is most likely due to me running a buntu in a VMware instance and the graphics drivers are probably not loaded correctly now if you're running this natively or a Linux machine let me know down in the comments if you're experiencing any of these graphical glitches now apart from this everything works just as well as it did on Windows version and it looks exactly the same in terms of features and functions Australia yeah um Lynn and I got married over in h Cove just outside of Adelaide and we had um little penguins there so I just want to say a massive thank you and well done to SDR play and specifically the development team that have worked on SDR connect a nice multiplatform SDR software designed to work with the RSP Sr devices I look forward to seeing where this software goes in the future and hopefully we'll see the inclusion of plug-in support like we did in SDR Uno anyway guys until the next video stay safe take care and thanks for watching see you in the next one

Channel: Tech Minds

Views: 23,498

Keywords: sdrconnect, sdrplay, software defined radio, best sdr of 2024, best sdr of 2023, hf swl, how to listen to ham radio, software, defined, radio, how to install sdr on linux, pi5

Id: TCI7kgRyL4M

Length: 8min 27sec (507 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023