Re: RTL-SDR v3 dongle support

[Jeff Long]

This is true. GNU Radio is looking at directly supporting gr-iio (PLUTO) and gr-soapy (drivers available for a number of SDRs) in the future to give users more choices. We will still be dependent on outside projects/vendors to maintain the drivers, though. GNU Radio (this list) is a user of rtl-sdr and gr-osmosdr, but does not maintain those packages or any other drivers.

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 1:47 PM Karl <gmkarl@gmail.com> wrote:

Just a comment that I've had a lot of difficulty contributing to the osmocom rtlsdr driver.  I've had multiple patches that addressed instabilities go unresponded to on their mailing list.  After some years they said they had a new maintainer but that it was my responsibility to find my patches and send them to the new maintainer.  It would be nice if there were a driver with a gentler barrier to contribution, speaking as somebody who has difficulty interacting with both computers and human beings.

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 1:16 PM geraldfenkell <geraldfenkell@computechnics.ca> wrote:

2021-03-26

 

Thank you Jeff.

 

1. I did not realize that I was replying off the list.  This time I did a reply all and I hope that should fix the

    location to the list.

 

2. I greatly appreciate your response and believe that I made a mistake in saying version 3.8.2 of

    gnuradio.  It is the automatic version that I installed using apt-get on Ubuntu 20.04.  Probably

    3..8.1.? and I think the ? represents a further refinement.  I do not know for sure. (I know not

    that of which I speak)

 

3. I never knew that gr-osmosdr and rtl-sdr were installed automatically with apt-get.  I do have a 

    hackrf radio and I will at some point pursue gr-osmosdr using gnu radio as well as rtl-sdr.

 

I truly appreciate your guidance and thank you for that.

 

regards

 

Jerry  (VE3OBX)

 

 

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[Please keep discussion on the mailing list]

 

The rtl-sdr package does not depend on the version of gnuradio.

 

Ubuntu 20.04 currently packages gnuradio 3.8.1. Installing that brings in gr-osmosdr and rtl-sdr automatically when you use

  apt install gnuradio

 

If you have gnuradio 3.8.2, then the answer depends on how you installed it.

 

There is more information on GNU Radio installation here:

https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/InstallingGR

 

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 11:45 AM geraldfenkell <geraldfenkell@computechnics.ca> wrote:

2021-03-26

 

1. Is there a version of gr-osmosdr and rtl-sdr available for gnuradio version 3.8.2 that comes as a package

   that could be loaded to 3.8.2 using a form of sudo apt-get?

 

2. If such is available could you kindly provide the exact "sudo apt-get ...." that would load it.

 

3. Would the point 2. above automatically bring in any required drivers for Ubuntu 20.04?

 

4. If the answer to 3. is no could you kindly provide any required details on obtaining and loading the

    drivers.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Jerry

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gr-osmosdr and rtl-sr dare used by GNU Radio, but they are maintained by the Osmocom project. Distributions may call something 0.6.0 but actually use the latest code. Some RTLs, like the Smart Tee have the bias tee turned on permanently. There is also a rtl_biast application that comes with recent rtl-sdr versions.

 

On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 9:19 AM Wojciech Kazubski <wk@ire.pw.edu.pl> wrote:

Hello
Now improved RTL-SDR dongles are widely available, according to sellers'
notice they support bias tee and direct conversion. So far rtl-sdr driver has
support for bias tee for some time, but the last tag 0.6.0 is quite old and
does not have this.
Some distributions tend to stick to releases/tags of packages, so they still
have rtl-sdr-0.6.0 without bias tee support.

Is there a chance to have new tag of rtl-sdr (if the bias tee support is
finished)?

--
Wojciech