LibreSDR

Simon Brown • January 13, 2025

On Order

After talking on QO-100 with Mike, G0MJW, I've ordered a LibreSDR from AliExpress where it's known as "SDR AD9363 AD9361 ZYNQ7020 ADI Pluto communication experiment platform". The device is available in the OpenSourceSDRLab Store.


Reasons for the order:

  1. This device is becoming quite popular,
  2. Is compatible with the ADALM Pluto from Analog Devices,
  3. Has an ethernet port,
  4. Offers more bandwidth than the ADALM Pluto, something I've been looking for.


When it arrives and I have it working I'll report back with another blog entry.


Specification

  1. Using XC7Z020-2CLG400I chip 7z020-2I
  2. The AD9363 chip is configured as the AD9361 chip, the frequency range is 70MHz~6GHz, and the maximum sampling rate is 61.44MHz. As a result, the laboratory test shows that it is significantly different from the AD9361
  3. PS 1GB DDR3 32bit bit width, frequency 1066M
  4. 32MB QSPI Flash, support TF card
  5. Onboard JTAG circuit and USB to serial port, one line for power supply and debugging
  6. Support USB OTG, can be master or slave, all USB interfaces use TYPE-C interface, OTG mode is automatically recognized, and the USB port is turned on for power supply
  7. Adopt VCXO, support PPS or 10MHz tame Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
  8. Adopt 10-layer PCB wiring, impedance matching, signal integrity design
  9. The product adopts CNC shell to strengthen heat dissipation and ensure strength;


Images Etc.

Images and text in this post from AliExpress. If the links change then just search for "Software defined radio SDR AD9363 AD9361 ZYNQ7020 ADI Pluto communication experiment platform".

All image copyright AliExpress and Open Source SDR Lab. They're not mine.

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SDR Television v1.1.3 User Interface Fixed erroneous cursor flicker in Settings help text and Receive, Transmit panes. Fixed error in the spectrum squelch logic. Minor fix/improvement in QPSK LUT lookup for low values. Receiver Use highest possible quality decimation for symbol rates of 333ksps and lower. Added optional Doppler correction for LEO/MEO satellites such as MARMOTsat (July 2026). This will most probably be tweaked when the DVB-S2 transmissions started. Downloads are at the bottom of this page.
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SDR Television v1.1.2 June 12th, 2026: Add option to disable audio, thus making more bits available for video, this is for use in DATV contests. Note: 66 ksps sample rate is still experimental, will be improved. Downloads are at the bottom of this page. 
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SDR Television v1.1.1 June 9th, 2026: Fixes a fatal bug in the Settings, Camera page. Downloads are at the bottom of this page.
By Simon Brown May 23, 2026
Version 1.6.2 This release fixes two bugs in the new DX Spot feature. The spot age logic incorrectly affected spot display. When the map was zoomed, station markers off the map would be displayed at the top left (0, 0).  Downloads are on the World Map page . Version 1.6.1 This release fixes two fatal bugs in the new DX Spot feature. When the graphics engine is restarted, resources are correctly released. Fixed a resource leak when processing the MoseMove logic. Downloads are on the World Map page . Version 1.6 This release adds the display of DX Spots. Display spots are submitted to PSK Reporter which in turn are relayed by a MQTT Broker running on a high performance Akamia node. Spot Format Each spot consists of these fields: Sequence Frequency Band Mode Signal level Time stamp Sending station call, square, country Receiving station call, square, country Note: The country is the ADIF country. Spots are displayed as they arrive, currently no on-demand database. Bandwidth To reduce bandwidth from the broker, filtering is required for 80m up to and including 15m. Filtering requires at least one field below to be set in a definition: Receiver callsign, square or country. Sender callsign, square or country. Without filtering the bandwith from the broker could be excessive. For LF and VHF+ no filtering is required due to the lower number of spots sent on these bands. In a later version the bandwidth restriction may be reduced.
By Simon Brown May 21, 2026
Version 1.6.1 This release fixes two fatal bugs in the new DX Spot feature. When the graphics engine is restarted, resources are correctly released. Fixed a resource leak when processing the MoseMove logic.  Downloads are on the World Map page . Version 1.6 This release adds the display of DX Spots. Display spots are submitted to PSK Reporter which in turn are relayed by a MQTT Broker running on a high performance Akamia node. Spot Format Each spot consists of these fields: Sequence Frequency Band Mode Signal level Time stamp Sending station call, square, country Receiving station call, square, country Note: The country is the ADIF country. Spots are displayed as they arrive, currently no on-demand database. Bandwidth To reduce bandwidth from the broker, filtering is required for 80m up to and including 15m. Filtering requires at least one field below to be set in a definition: Receiver callsign, square or country. Sender callsign, square or country. Without filtering the bandwith from the broker could be excessive. For LF and VHF+ no filtering is required due to the lower number of spots sent on these bands. In a later version the bandwidth restriction may be reduced.
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Version 1.6 This release adds the display of DX Spots. Display spots are submitted to PSK Reporter which in turn are relayed by a MQTT Broker running on a high performance Akamia node. Spot Format Each spot consists of these fields: Sequence Frequency Band Mode Signal level Time stamp Sending station call, square, country Receiving station call, square, country Note: The country is the ADIF country. Spots are displayed as they arrive, currently no on-demand database. Bandwidth To reduce bandwidth from the broker, filtering is required for 80m up to and including 15m. Filtering requires at least one field below to be set in a definition: Receiver callsign, square or country. Sender callsign, square or country. Without filtering the bandwith from the broker could be excessive. For LF and VHF+ no filtering is required due to the lower number of spots sent on these bands. In a later version the bandwidth restriction may be reduced.
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