blaplante
Well Known Member
Recently I've encountered a couple of RV owners looking to add a second COM radio, mostly to listen to ATIS.
Given my experience with STRATUX, I got to thinking... why not use a Raspberry Pi and a SDR radio dongle to do this?
Turns out, not exactly a new thought. Well, a new thought to put in IN an airplane perhaps. There is already software - rtl_fm and after some fooling around I am listening to airband from my home desktop machine. A side advantage is that the SDR can also receive broadcast FM stations (using software "softFM"). And that is working well for me.
I did have issues with the Pi Zero. Way too much local noise. There are some reports that the Zero is noisy. Need to test with something else (a 3B or 3B+).
So all up, you need:
Raspberry Pi 3B - about $60
Nooelec SDR - about $50
SD card - about $5
Software - free
Display - maybe a 2x20 character LCD for $20 or less
Some sort of user interface for input... (not command line).
My thoughts are to use a bluetooth Numeric Keypad $20 (Amazon)
Volume control $5 or so
------------------------------------
Total about $160
so for under $200 an Airband / FM receiver
plus some software to take keyboard entries and do the tuning.
Thoughts folks?
Anything anyone is interested in? I can share where I've gotten to.
I think this won't be the solution for either of the buddies... for one he really wants a real radio for IFR redundancy, the other I think we'll hookup his handheld to the intercom and an external antenna.
And I don't think I need a 3rd radio just to pick up FM.
-Bryan
PS for future reference ... frequency calibration of the cheap SDR radio is the key to airband reception. Mine was far enough off (4 khz) so that I heard nothing until I fixed that.
Given my experience with STRATUX, I got to thinking... why not use a Raspberry Pi and a SDR radio dongle to do this?
Turns out, not exactly a new thought. Well, a new thought to put in IN an airplane perhaps. There is already software - rtl_fm and after some fooling around I am listening to airband from my home desktop machine. A side advantage is that the SDR can also receive broadcast FM stations (using software "softFM"). And that is working well for me.
I did have issues with the Pi Zero. Way too much local noise. There are some reports that the Zero is noisy. Need to test with something else (a 3B or 3B+).
So all up, you need:
Raspberry Pi 3B - about $60
Nooelec SDR - about $50
SD card - about $5
Software - free
Display - maybe a 2x20 character LCD for $20 or less
Some sort of user interface for input... (not command line).
My thoughts are to use a bluetooth Numeric Keypad $20 (Amazon)
Volume control $5 or so
------------------------------------
Total about $160
so for under $200 an Airband / FM receiver
plus some software to take keyboard entries and do the tuning.
Thoughts folks?
Anything anyone is interested in? I can share where I've gotten to.
I think this won't be the solution for either of the buddies... for one he really wants a real radio for IFR redundancy, the other I think we'll hookup his handheld to the intercom and an external antenna.
And I don't think I need a 3rd radio just to pick up FM.
-Bryan
PS for future reference ... frequency calibration of the cheap SDR radio is the key to airband reception. Mine was far enough off (4 khz) so that I heard nothing until I fixed that.