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The Hobbyist's Guide to the RTL-SDR: Really Cheap Software Defined Radio by [Carl Laufer]

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Carl Laufer

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

by Carl Laufer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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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. Note: To update the book you must manually contact Kindle support and request the update.

Last updated to edition 7 on 19 February 2018.

Print length

282 pages
Language

English
Publication date

May 14, 2014
File size

41244 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KCDF1QI
Publisher ‏ : ‎ RTL-SDR.com; 7th edition (May 14, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 14, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 41244 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 282 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #73,474 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #12 in Telecommunications

Customer Reviews:
725 ratings

About the author

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Carl Laufer

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Customer reviews

5 star		74%
4 star		17%
3 star		7%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Ekkehard

The title says it all

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2018

Verified Purchase

I have to give the book three stars and myself one for buying it: It is strictly a Hobbyist's Guide. It tells you which software to download from where to receive basically everything that can be received with the RTL-SDR. It even tells you how to install the various (often commercial) pieces of software and where to click to make it all run. If there is more than one choice, it even tells you what - in the author's opinion- is the best choice. If, however, you wanted to LEARN anything about what modulation and encoding techniques are used for the different services that can be received or what signal processing the SDR needs to perform to decode it all, you've come to the wrong place. Grudgingly, I would have given the book even more stars, if it were not for the shoddy editing (I got the print edition with lots of erroneous word repetitions, "that" instead of "than" and other typing errors) and the lack of a keyword index at the end. What mislead me was the mentioning of GNURadio (which uses signal processing building blocks for everything) in the table of contents - it is mentioned as a tool, but not used for anything after that. So again, this book may be exactly what you are looking for (except for the bad editing and the lack of an index), but it is definitely not even close to a textbook or manual for engineers that would teach any underlying concepts whatsoever.

54 people found this helpful

Helpful

Pauljs

'Too Much Sugar For A Dime' or... this is all you'll need to enter into SDR

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

This book is a compilation of current data in the up and coming world of Software Defined Radio. If there is any doubt in you mind as to the future of SDR, this book quickly displays the possibilities of the science and gets your attention.

I've noticed that even discrete radios are coming out now with internal SDR functions, allowing for more 'bang for the buck' so to speak, in the purchase of feature rich devices.

I've been involved in electronics and radio since the days of vacuum tubes. This relatively new science has me fascinated and spell-bound to say the least. Even scanner radios are incorporating software defined functions that make tedious frequency inputting a matter of just entering a zip code! Just imagine that feature.

Actually, SDR is like adding another dimension to physical radios. Once the physical world is translated into the digital world, the sky is the limit. If you doubt this at all, buy this book and skim through its various paragraph headers; or the detailed table of contents that in itself is the result of software sorting and publishing.

I have a Kindle, but haven't as yet figured out how to 'move' the book onto it. The author mentions that this is an option, but I'm failing to accomplish that as of this writing.

39 people found this helpful

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Richard A. Vercouteren

No help at all

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

I am sure it's a great book if your dongle is already working and you are a computer expert. I ordered it to help me troubleshoot the dongle installation. The steps (which are identical online for free) were not specific enough to install it correctly and none of the things listed on the troubleshooting guide was applicable or it gave information I could not use I.E. "do such and such" but it would not explain how to do "such and such" , then to add insult to injury it gives a list of "other blogs and resources" on the last pages to help figure this out, which is why I bought the book in the first place! This was a complete waste of my time and money.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

The Missing RTL-SDR Manual

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

I think this book should be called “The Missing RTL-SDR Manual.” It explained everything I needed to know in order to make my SDR dongle work, and this was especially important because the dongle came with absolutely no instructions. After covering the basics with detailed but simple written directions, screenshots, and a troubleshooting section (which I needed), the book goes into more advanced topics such as receiving digital communications from airplanes, tracking aircraft, displaying live images from NOAA weather satellites, using the Orbitron satellite tracker program, receiving images from the Meteor-M N2 polar orbiting Russian weather satellite, receiving and decoding weather balloon radiosondes, etc., etc. There is an antenna guide, an audio piping guide, a general frequency guide, a section for radio astronomy enthusiasts... The list goes on and on. If there were a Pulitzer Prize for easy-to-understand, useful, and complete instruction manuals covering a wide range of topics for beginners, I think this remarkable book would win it. The author, Carl Laufer, is to be commended for his truly excellent work!—Joe Benson

30 people found this helpful

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John A. Parker

Comprehensive coverage but a liitle outdated

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

While this book has excellent step by step procedures it is outdate as a few of the recemented suppliers are no longer in business. This edition is not the most recent from what I can tell. I recommend this as a great refence that you myth have to follow-up with additional on-line searches for current information.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

An “ok” reference book

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2020

Verified Purchase

Was going this book had more information, other reviews are correct this book has limited value and all of the information can be found for free buy doing a google search. If I had found this book at a physical book store and thumbed through it I would have placed it back on the shelf and moved on to the next reference book on the shelf. Found very little useable information in this book.

Helpful

vk3jed

Excellent reference

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book will tell you all you need to know to get started with an RTL-SDR system. In addition, it covers a number of issues in detail, provides links to online sources for hardware and software. Finally, there is a list of projects to try with your new SDR. If you're getting started, this book will get you well and truly on the way. The only thing lacking is a decent tutorial in installing GNU Radio, which can be a daunting task.

Overall, a highly recommended book for anyone looking to explore low cost SDR technology or is looking for a new project to try.

11 people found this helpful

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jk3

Nice compilation of articles

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2014

Verified Purchase

It was a compilation of many articles that I found over the internet in doing research into the topic. It was nice to have all the details in one location but not a lot of new content. Was worth the money to anyone who just got a RTL-SDR dongle and wants a single place to to read how to use it rather than search around for the information via search engines. I noted that a lot of people got the dongles for the RTL-SDR purpose and were frustrated in figuring how to use it. This book is for them.

51 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Happyexpat

Informative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

I was dubious having bought ham radio books before but this is excellent for both a new user of SDR and beyond but probably of little use to a very experienced user. It covers in simple to understand language the basics but moves on is a steady logical progression to all the other things you can do. It even covers plugins and the antennas.

Well worth the money and almost a must on your kindle if you are interested in the subject.

Well done to the author. De EA5IZO

4 people found this helpful

R. M. Leith

Vast amount of information, but requires a lot of hunting for the required elements

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book is fairly expensive, but it does contain a large amount of information. However, it quickly moves into territory that leaves the newbie floundering. In particular, the huge range of signals that can be graphed, listened to, viewed and detected are given their technical names which leaves the interested beginner somewhat in the dark.

There is a lot of help to be found on the Internet, so this is not too much of a barrier. I'm sure that it will be invaluable once the initial learning curve is surmounted.

5 people found this helpful

Keith

RTL-SDR

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2021

Verified Purchase

Very good book for getting the most out of your RTL-SDR unit.

2 people found this helpful

Anthony L.

Quite THE reference manual!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

There are so many included links to other sources on the RTL-SDR and SDR in general, that make this title very hard to put down.
Although one can start from their website and browse the links from there, I find the book so chock-full of useful info, it's worth considering buying the next edition when it comes out.
Clearly SDR radio is a game changer for the industry.

2 people found this helpful

Darren

The Hobbyist's Guide to the RTL-SDR

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

Excellent value for money

One person found this helpful

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