RTL2832 based SDR receiver

Work In Progress

Last updated: October 5, 2012

Unsorted notes on using a RTL2832 based DVB-T stick as SDR receiver.


HDSDR and DVB-T	SDR# and DVB-T DVB-T stick at antenna base

HDSDR and RTL2832 external IO module installation on Windows 7

Howto install HDSDR with the RTL2832 module on Windows 7 (in Dutch, not maintained anymore).

SDR# and RTL2832 installation on Windows 7

A description on how to install SDR# with a RTL2832 DVB-T stick can be found here.
A Dutch summary of the install procedure version 0.2.

DVB-T stick location

Because the DVB-T stick is small and is USB powered it is no problem to mount the stick close to the antenna and use an USB extension cable. An USB cable of 5m did work well.

Comparison between e4000, fc0013 and r820t tuners

The latest software from osmocom.org (see osmocom rtlsdr wiki) supports the Elonics E4000, Fitipower FC0013 and Rafael Micro R820T tuners:


Spectrum with e4000 tuner September 29, 2012	Spectrum with fc0013 tuner September 29, 2012


Spectrum with e4000 tuner October 5, 2012	Spectrum with r820t tuner October 5, 2012

Measured with gnuradio and this GRC script. In both cases center frequency is 88.2 MHz and sample rate is 1 MHz. The plots show 2 WFM transmitters at 88.0 MHz en 88.6 MHZ.
Ignore the gain slider values, they have no relation with the actual gain.

Connecting SDR# to other audio applications

To connect the output of SDR# to the input of other applications simply connect the line-out to the line-in of your computer.
If your computer does not have line-out and line-in, e.g. a laptop, use the folowing cable to connect the headphone output to the microphone input:

Example, PDW connected to SDR#: