Red Pitaya Remote Receiver Station
Inhaltsverzeichnis
1 Project Scope
The goal of this project is to set up a remote controlled shortwave receiver station that is connectable via HAMNET.
First, I installed two Chinese wideband preamplifiers. Later I heard that there was a special kit from Box73 / FUNKAMATEUR that did the job much better. My observation with the Chinese preamp was that the input of the SDR was highly overloaded, so I needed one with an adjustable amplification. Please check the instruction: http://www.box73.de/download/bausaetze/BZ-100.pdf
Once deployed, I understood that I needed to install Pavel Demon's firmware. Since the deployment at DB0MHB is a little out of reach, I needed to log into my Red Pitaya and make sure that the installation files go to the right place. I decided to build a deb package so that this job was easier.
The final goal is to have a recording / monitoring receiver that can fully be remote-controlled. The Pitaya can be switched on and off with the remote control switch described here: A relay box for control from Linux and A remote Ethernet switch for my relay box
2 Component List
- Aluminium diecast case HAMMOND 1550F: 50 €
- Red Pitaya: 235 €
- Neutrik socket Cinch (power supply): 10 €
- Neutrik socket USB thru: 10 €
- Neutrik socket Ethernet thru: 10 €
- 25cm USB cable: 2 €
- 2x Telegärtner Lightning protection: 2x 50 €
- 2x pigtail N-SMA: 5 €
- DC DC Converter: 10 €
- Chinese wideband preamplifier: 10 €
- FUNKAMATEUR preamplifier specially designed for Red Pitaya: 50 €
- Teflon cable with SMA plug: 5 €
- Semi Rigid SMA/SMA: 5 €
- Voltage Limiter IC for 12V: 3 €
- LM2940L-12 ensuring that possible input voltage spikes will not damage my preamp
- 2x Ferrite Core: 3 €
- 2x N socket with pigtail: 10 €
- 1 PCB: 1 €
- M4 spacers: 5 €
- M3 spacers: 5 €
Overall total: 529 €
3 Software Stuff
Firstly, unless there is some special configuration on the Pitaya, you should be able to detect ot from another machine.
In our case, we are using a Raspberry Pi for OpenWebRX and the Pitaya for receiving.
This is some background info, but not applicable in our case since we are using the Soapy toola below...:
http://pavel-demin.github.io/red-pitaya-notes/sdr-receiver/
So we needed to implement this on the Raspberry Pi:
#Installing SoapySDR: git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDR cd SoapySDR mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install sudo ldconfig cd ..
#Installing rx_tools: git clone https://github.com/rxseger/rx_tools cd rx_tools mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install sudo ldconfig cd ..
git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyRedPitaya.git cd SoapyRedPitaya mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install
git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyRemote.git cd SoapyRemote mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install
The detection should work then with the command
SoapySDRUtil --probe="driver=redpitaya, addr=44.225.41.10"
giving the following result:
###################################################### ## Soapy SDR -- the SDR abstraction library ###################################################### Probe device driver=redpitaya, addr=44.225.41.10 ---------------------------------------------------- -- Device identification ---------------------------------------------------- driver=redpitaya hardware=redpitaya ---------------------------------------------------- -- Peripheral summary ---------------------------------------------------- Channels: 1 Rx, 1 Tx Timestamps: NO ---------------------------------------------------- -- RX Channel 0 ---------------------------------------------------- Full-duplex: YES Supports AGC: NO Stream formats: CF32 Native format: CF32 [full-scale=1] Full gain range: [0, 0] dB Full freq range: [0.05, 60] MHz RF freq range: [0.05, 60] MHz Sample rates: 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1.25 MSps ---------------------------------------------------- -- TX Channel 0 ---------------------------------------------------- Full-duplex: YES Supports AGC: NO Stream formats: CF32 Native format: CF32 [full-scale=1] Full gain range: [0, 0] dB Full freq range: [0.05, 60] MHz RF freq range: [0.05, 60] MHz Sample rates: 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1.25 MSps
Since we now can access the Pitaya via a standard interface, it's time to configure OpenWebRX accordingly:
The following link will provide some partly applicable support:
https://github.com/simonyiszk/openwebrx/wiki/Setting-up-OpenWebRX-on-a-Raspberry-Pi-2
This is also helpful:
https://forum.redpitaya.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1911
And this is extremely helpful:
https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDR/wiki