DIYbanter - View Single Post

Geoffrey S. Mendelson

wrote:
I work on fire alarm systems in outlying areas that transmit

Other than my service monitor/spectrum analyzer which tunes .450Mhz to 1.0 Ghz FM, (only) I have no way to hear this AM signal. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks, Lenny

For about $20 on eBay, you can buy a USB Dongle that allows you to watch
European standard Digital TV (DVB-T). Some of them are really just receivers
with wideband analong to digital converters, the signal decoding is done by
your computer.

This makes them easily useable as wideband receivers, and there is a lot
of software to support them.

For example, SDR# (s d r sharp) which runs on Windows, and there is an
Android app too. I had to root my cheap Chinese tablet to get it to work.

Look for "RTL2832U" on eBay. Be careful because some of the programs only
support the E4000 tuner chip (e.g. the Android App) and most of the USB
sticks on the market today use the newer but incompatible R820T tuner
chip.

Some of the vendors go as far as say "Perfect for E4000" and never mention
that they have the R820T chip in them.

Current production ones use a Belling-Lee antenna, aka PAL (ouch), antenna
connector. The R820T ones use an MCX connector (very small), look at the
picture, if it has an MCX connector it is NOT an E4000.

Note that if you need a remote receiver, you can shoehorn the whole thing
into a Raspberry Pi.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379