Software Defined Radio Part 2 - Decoding Digital Transmissions with an RTL-SDR USB Radio

Lon: as a long time ham, I’m so glad to see you got your license. That said, I’m pretty new to the SDR world, and this video was very informative. I appreciate your enthusiasm and your explanations are extremely well done. There are few folks that can explain technical subjects as well as you do. Thanks and 73 de N5CSU

SDR trunk is a great program for decoding public safety. Also try slow scan TV from the ISS. And weather satellites are also very fun. You can also pick up a lot of aircraft data in the HF spectrum. And also weather data in HF spectrum

EXCELLENT! i have been using SDRS for almost 5 years and oh my god! you are the first guy I've watched who actually explained Q branch! i knew it opened up a bunch of short wave and plethora of other signals. Not one of the dozens of other guys I've watched over the years have gone into Q branch like you did. that alone will help all the new guys into SDR world.

You're ready for the tech exam Lon! Thanks for all the VLOGS.

Great video Lon! SDR radios are great fun for sure. Your presentation is excellent at explaining what one can do with them. I go back to the early 80's operating packet radio on 2 meters and 70 cm bands. Did a lot of satellite work then too. Good luck on your ham license.

I never had much luck with DSD+ (non fastlane) and switched to using SDRTrunk instead with great results. It can channel follow and use multiple radios to cover a larger bandwidth than a single radio.

Excellent informative video. I just received the dongle and antenna today and within minutes I was surprised to actually hear faint voices coming through the speaker, I instantly felt like I was cool. I’m hooked now and I appreciate you going into detail because it helped a lot.

Please keep us posted on all the things you find with SDR. Love the content. I had no idea this was a thing and I find it fascinating. I've begun studying for my technicians license as well!

Hi Lon, Good luck with your Technician license exam. I obtained mine several decades ago when Morse Code was still required for other licenses (not Technician).....N0QBI (November Zero Quebec Bravo India) is my call sign. I bought a couple of two way radios from Amazon for using while we RV in our 5th wheel trailer. Lots of fun and useful when I am backing the trailer up with the wife being a spotter. Search for BAOFENG UV-5R. I also got involved with the local Weather Warn Spotter group when I lived in MN. I learned a lot about weather going through the training. Thanks for doing an awesome review of the SDR. Didn't know it existed until I saw your reviews. As always, your reviews are very thorough. Much appreciated. Thank you, Tom (73)

absolutely an excellent presentation. Clear and precise and graphically presented for a newbie like me.

Very well researched tutorial. When looking at this sigidwiki, i was surprised that the vast majority of protocols are actually 2 cascaded modulations, often NFM for the RF and something else at audio freq, which shows that somebody actually took a walkietalkie and built a modem for the mic/speaker inputs. I had expected that almost all decoders that you hang behind the sdr would require I and Q streams piped over the virtual audio cable. Again learned something new today.

Thanks for this great video. I tried to set up a radio receiver (an actual big, physical unit that was meant to be paired with an equally large physical transmitter) several years ago, but the learning curve was too steep, and trying to figure out what antennas and other equipment I needed was too daunting. None of it would talk to a computer, either. I ended up giving the equipment to a family member. This looks like a lot of fun--and much easier and cheaper to experiment with.. I just ordered the kit. :)

Omg this vid is info packed! I've been using my rtl sdr v4 and having fun

The bug bit him and bit him hard. He's already found the unencrypted hospital pagers. 😄

Great stuff Ron. My wife and I got our Tech licenses about 10 years ago before we went sailing. Sadly never did much with them. Looking forward to taking the journey with you.

Welcome to the Ham world, 73 from KB3VOG

Really great work, very complete and comprehensive! I just missed you talking about the one that I use the most with my SDR: SW Radiogram! Maybe in the part 3? :-)

You might like to try the "simple dmr plugin" as an alternative to a virtual sound card and DSD. Some physical radios can be fed into the same software, using an audio cable. But a lot of the time it won't work because the audio output on the headphone jack is too narrow.

This was an extremelly well presented video. Thank you.

Absolutely fantastic video. Thank you so very much :)