Heard FM on the basic RX hooray!

GNU Radio
1

After some (perhaps needless) struggle I am happy to report I finally
got to listen to some FM stations using the basic Rx. Some tips for the
wary newcomer:

  1. Dont try to build wxPython. It requires an act of God to get all the
    pieces together to make that happen. Instead install from the binary
    that you can get from wxPython.org.
  2. You are best off inserting a wire into the connector for the Antenna.
    Radio shack does not cary a suitable antenna that fits into the
    connector.
  3. You dont need anything more than a long wire as an “RF Front End” to
    just fiddle around and get some FM reception.

So it actually works! That was the point of the exercise. I have the
worlds most expensive FM radio finally (for the quality of sound I get
from it anyway – no this is not a complaint). I will now proceed to
figure out the various pieces that make this all work.

Rock and roll!

2

On Fri, 2007-01-05 at 13:35 -0500, M. Ranganathan wrote:

…I have the worlds most expensive FM radio finally

That’s okay, I sometimes listen to the local AM BCB on my Icom PRO II HF
transceiver–that’s a (US) $2K+ equivalent of a crystal set :slight_smile:

–
Johnathan C., AE6HO
Corgan Enterprises LLC
[email protected]

3

On Saturday 06 January 2007 05:05, M. Ranganathan wrote:

After some (perhaps needless) struggle I am happy to report I finally
got to listen to some FM stations using the basic Rx. Some tips for the
wary newcomer:

  1. Dont try to build wxPython. It requires an act of God to get all the
    pieces together to make that happen. Instead install from the binary
    that you can get from wxPython.org.

Unless you use pkgsrc in which case you just type “make install” in
meta-pkgs/gnuradio. pkgsrc will build and install gnuradio including
documentation, examples and all missing dependencies… :slight_smile:

  1. You are best off inserting a wire into the connector for the Antenna.
    Radio shack does not cary a suitable antenna that fits into the connector.

Get a SMA to BNC or SMA to N adapter which are available from Farnell,
RS or
much cheaper on Ebay! It makes life so much easier!

I’ve installed the USRP and all accessories inside a 19" rackmount
enclosure.

  1. You dont need anything more than a long wire as an “RF Front End” to
    just fiddle around and get some FM reception.

Yep, that how I started. However, a low noise broadband amplifier will
bring
very subtle improvements. I have a RFA-403 low noise broadband amplifier
(0.01-2.0GHz) that is used as a LNA and exciter amplifier. Its low cost
(29,90 EUR), easy to build kit available from http://www.funkamateur.de

So it actually works! That was the point of the exercise. I have the
worlds most expensive FM radio finally (for the quality of sound I get
from it anyway – no this is not a complaint). I will now proceed to
figure out the various pieces that make this all work.

Now that you’ve got this far, I’m sure there are many other applications
for
you to explore and enjoy.

cheerio Berndt

4

Johnathan C. wrote:

On Fri, 2007-01-05 at 13:35 -0500, M. Ranganathan wrote:

…I have the worlds most expensive FM radio finally

That’s okay, I sometimes listen to the local AM BCB on my Icom PRO II HF
transceiver–that’s a (US) $2K+ equivalent of a crystal set :slight_smile:

It has the nicest display of any crystal set you ever saw, however!

Frank