Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] SDR for beginners (if not quite "dummies")

[Bruce Ferrell]

On 12/2/18 3:47 AM, Colin Rowat wrote:
> I'm looking for an interesting Christmas present for my sons (ages 13 and 10) and wondered about software-defined radio.  We're reasonably tech literate, but don't have any SDR 
> experience.
>
> I'd thought that it could be interesting for them to see what sort of signals 
> are passing through the air around us, and even identify and listen to some of 
> them.
>
> I'd love something that:
>
> 1.is easy to use and can give an immediate reward out of the box - e.g. tuning 
> into something they couldn't otherwise hear, or transmitting to walkie-talkies 
> in the area.
>
> 2.allows room to grow, so that they can do more serious things with it if 
> they're interested
>
> 3.can be used from an Android phone or a Raspberry Pi (nice, but not essential)
>
> 4.not too expensive
>
> Thus, I think I'd need both SDR hardware and an intro-level book/manual.
>
> I'd be grateful for any suggestions about how to get started with SDR.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Colin
>
>
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Collin,

Up until about two weeks ago I was looking for exactly what you're asking for... And I've 
been a/ Electronics/radio/Linux "person" since high school in the 70's!

While How-to-obtain/build is great... And too much of the on-line stuff stops at how to obtain/build OR dives directly off into deep mathematics. Neither of those are very useful 
in how to use/get started.

Then I found this set of tutorials on YouTube to be extraordinarily useful: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRovDyowOn5F67h9nHN4RWqmvXyt18uj8

The cheapest SDR you can lay you hands on is an RTL-SDR v3 at about $25... It 
can ONLY be a receiver, but you can get going listening.  It was my first.

My second was the SDRplay one.  I got rid of it as it's Linux driver was closed... It was only available as a binary for very particular Linux distros and they weren't the ones I 
was using. They spent a year saying they would build for other distros and never did... Vexing.

I then found the BladeRF, which I like but I have it in use in a semi-dedicated 
role.

I also play around with the ADALM-Pluto from analog devices. This one is 
interesting in that it also has a built in Linux host

My next, when I have spare money, will probably be a LimeSDR or LimeSDR-mini

Good luck!