LibreSDR Revisited
Simon Brown • February 23, 2025
16 MHz Bandwidth!

Default Firmware
Here you see a screenshot from SDR Television (work in progress) running the LibreSDR at 16MHz bandwidth.
This is the standard firmware from Evariste, F5OEO who has done a great job.
Compare 16MHz with LibreSDR to 5MHz with the PlutoSDR, a big difference!
Many thanks to Mike, G0MJW for the screenshot.
Overclocking
Other firmware is available which overclocks the LibreSDR, but I've not looked at this. Here are the key points:
This is an unofficial port of PlutoSDR onto LibreSDR a.k.a. ZynqSDR. The repo is based on day0wl's repo with several enhancements:
- Optimized linux kernel and buildroot to support higher practical sampling rates with libiio/PlutoSDR API (20 MSPS without overlock, compared to ~10 MSPS stock)
- Xilinx Zynq SoC overclock support (27.5 MSPS achieved with overclock to 1100 MHz CPU + 750 MHz DDR)
- Use LVDS mode for AD9361 to support max sampling rates in 2T2R mode
- Based on PlutoSDR v0.38 firmware (Nov 17, 2023)
- Prebuilt firmware with different overclocking options
Support
To support bandwidths higher than 6MHz a new release of SDR Console is required, so keep an eye out for announcements.

SDR Television Found and fixed an unused massive memory allocation (up to 10GB), may have caused systems to freeze. Fixed fatal bug in matched filter array allocation. Changed the default transmit bandpass shaping filter roll-off to 0.20 in transmit and receive. Please look at the images below and apply the change. SDR Pluto Now show the AGC gain and RSSI. Added Default link to select the recommended gain - Fast Attack, 0dB visual. Known Problems Add support for tracking transmissions with (?) non-standard PCR data, example is G8GKQ. Using Pluto & variants, sensitivity is not as good as a NIM (hardware tuner). Will compare with SPECTRAN ECO in a week or so.

After too much grief, I've decided to stop using Wi-Fi to connect the small NUC systems in the computer room to my network: DX Cluster (Ubuntu) SDR Server (Windows) User Forums (Windows) These servers are in constant use, causing the wireless transmitter on my TP-Link AX50 to fail. By switching over to a wired network there's less demand on the wireless transmitter and the whole network has become far more reliable. In future I will only use Wi-fi when there's no alternative. I'm keeping a spare router ready just in case the AX50 fails.