How to 'build a $19 scanner'

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yorky
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by yorky »

Excellent thanks, yes I have now tried the latest nightly release and changing frequencies on the fly works fine. Yes originally I downloaded the special XP version of Zadig so no issues there, I did download the latest nightly via the auto download batchfile however didn't use the Zadig from that obviously as it wasn't for XP.

Yep I saw the default plugins on the left, I'll give some from those sites a go thanks for that.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by yorky »

Couple of small issues, one being when I start SDR# it comes up three times with an ASIO something something error and I have to press OK each time, does this happen to anyone else?

Also again this might be a PC problem but I tried plugging in a second device and it blue screens XP every time :( Tried different ports, then one at a time installing the driver first then plugging them both in and bam BSOD...
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by robbage »

yorky wrote:Couple of small issues, one being when I start SDR# it comes up three times with an ASIO something something error and I have to press OK each time, does this happen to anyone else?
No. Can you post a screencap? One thing that was trapping people.. using a dongle with a remote control. The radio and the remote come up as separate items. They were installing the zadig driver to both and that was causing some issues.
yorky wrote:Also again this might be a PC problem but I tried plugging in a second device and it blue screens XP every time :( Tried different ports, then one at a time installing the driver first then plugging them both in and bam BSOD...
It BSOD as soon as you plug the second one into the USB port? Sounds like driver issues. Did you install the TV drivers that came with the dongle? If so, it might be worth uninstalling those. I found that some brands of dongle will use the Zadig driver on one port and the TV drivers on other ports. For me, it lets me SDR on one port then swap over and watch TV on other ports but I haven't tried multiple dongles (yet).

The yahoo sdrsharp group was full of people having weird issues depending on the OS, dongle type, 32 or 64 bit, shoe size and who knows what else. I quit yahoo so not sure what it's like now.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by yorky »

I have a feeling the ASIO error (while it doesn't seen to make any problems its just a pain to hit ok three times on start) might be to do with a previously installed Creative sound card. This PC is now using its onboard audio and even though the Creative software was uninstalled there might be something left behind, not to worry really.

When you say the radio and remote come up separate, is that to do with Interface 0 and Interface 1? I installed the driver to both as one of the instructions said it was best to. I bought the one from your first link with the remote.

It BSOD's after a few seconds of the second dongle being inserted (pops up detected new device first so some sort of driver issue I'm guessing). I did not touch any drivers that came with it at all as I know they can cause issues. Tried a few different ports and installed the Zadig drivers to a couple of different ports although it didn't ask for drivers it somehow transferred its Zadig driver to the other port without hitting install but tried the re-install driver option anyway to make sure.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by robbage »

yorky wrote:When you say the radio and remote come up separate, is that to do with Interface 0 and Interface 1? I installed the driver to both as one of the instructions said it was best to. I bought the one from your first link with the remote.
Yes, interface 0 and 1. The first one is always the tuner and the second one is the remote for those dongles. It could be the reason why you're having issues. You should be able to remove the driver using device manager. Mine (Win7) shows the device in the "Universal Serial Bus devices" as "Bulk-In, Interface (Interface 0)". Presumably you will have similar and an entry for Interface 1 as well.

As for the Creative driver, you might be able to flush those out by booting into safe mode, then go into device manager to find all the installed but unused drivers. I seem to remember you can do that on XP.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by yorky »

Bugger, I killed the Interface 1 in device manager but still blue screens when I plug the second stick in when it starts looking for a driver automagicly...
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by robbage »

The only other thing I can suggest is uninstalling the Zadig drivers completely and start again.

Also...
Image
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by colin »

For those that are interested, I've managed to get SDRSharp working for my feed.

Lots of learning for me, but it works now - Yay!!

Now I need a second DVB-T to scan the not-so-critical frequencies in the area....
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by roland985 »

Found this thread thanks to Yorky.


Use Linux.

Linux is a lot better at communicating with hardware than Windows is and ever will be.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by yorky »

Thread revival!

Thinking into this a bit more lately and thinking about having a go again on a new PC as the old one that BSOD'ed and played up on XP went in the bin.

Anyone had any recent experience with the latest version of the software?

The outcome I'm looking at doing, is multiple frequencies (so multiple dongles) and then multiple upload streams to something like Broadcastify (or even something that you could connect straight to home if only used for yourself). Say 4+ streams.

Also looking at it being recorded locally and a way to easily playback remotely.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by w0mbat »

Hi Yorky,

Did you get any further with this?
Would be interested to know the hardware/software you used.

Cheers

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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by yorky »

Unfortunately not.
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Re: How to 'build a $19 scanner'

Post by vk6hgr »

The software has really improved over the last few years and it's (almost) plug'n'play now. The hard part is getting rid of the Windows TV drivers for the tuner stick and installing the WinUSB driver so it works with SDR# etc, and calibrating them because the <$10 devices have a substantial frequency error.

Got some very interesting data decodes. The RDS traffic data being transmitted on the commercial FM broadcast channels was easy to decode (sadly, the locations are encrypted)

The stability of the drivers and the frequency drift is still pretty high for the cheap tuner sticks that I wouldn't consider replacing the real radios on the streams with them but apparently the ~$30 ones in metal boxes have stable TXCOs in them and are much better.
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