SDR Television - My Station

Simon Brown, G4ELI • May 6, 2025

Inside

All this equipment is installed in my computer room, next to the office.

Some people mount on metal, I prefer wood, much easier! So, what do we see here?

Early ADALM Pluto version A/B modified by Matthias, DD1US to support a 40MHz reference.
Analog Devices CN0417 RF amplifier, powered by micro-USB, optimized to operate on 2400 MHz with 18dBm maximum output, gain of 20-21dB, an integrated bandpass filter 2400 to 2500Mhz. Powered by 5V directly via a micro-USB jack. RF input and output connector in SMA.
Leo Bodnar GPS reference.
USB relay board which switches the power amplifier.

Also you see two USB hubs, one supplying power only, the other connected to the computer. To keep everything cool a nice USB fan which runs at its lowest setting. The RSHTECH USB hub will soon be replaced, I've had two PSUs die, one generated massive HF interference which was only recently found.

Now the power amplifier. This is a PowerBlast™ 300, a compact, highly efficient, solid state power

amplifier that delivers over 250 watts of RF power over the 100MHz BW of ISM 2.45GHz

frequency band.

The amplifier accepts a nominal 22 dBm (160 mW) RF input and provides 33 dB of gain from

2400 MHz to 2500 MHz for continuous wave (CW) and constant envelope input signals. Based

on the latest and more mature LDMOS technology, this high power amplifier achieves drain

efficiency of 60% (final stage) and more than 57% in module level at rated power.

I haven't finished the screening, so it's held in place by two rolls of solder! Cooling comes from a pair of 80mm USB variable speed fans. Temperature does not exceed 35°C.

The power supply is a RUZIZAO 30V 20A Bench Power Supply which runs at 28V. I like this device as it also shows the wattage.

Outside

Here you see:

1.4 prime focus dish with ~300kg of ballast.
POTY feed.
Bullseye LNB.
LDF4-50 1/2″ Andrew HELIAX Coaxial Cable, length 10m.
A plastic plant pot which keeps the rain off (last image only).

I've had problems with the Bullseye LNBs. They are very good with low phase noise, but the two I own have lost their calibration so a G4EML Bullseye Tuner is used to recalibrate. Many thanks to Mike, G0MJW for building this.

Future

In a month or three I'll be using a LibreSDR. Also, I'm hoping to find a Raven 2.4m dish someday, this would give a gain of approximately 3 (4.77 dB) over the 1.4m dish (compare the surface areas).

Summary

So, that's it. The amplifier puts out far more power than I actually need on DATV - typically running 40w output with plenty in reserve, so I have enough for a good 1,000 ksps transmission.

I'm occasionally on the BATC and WW nets, you have been warned!

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SDR Television v1.0.6

By Simon Brown • February 13, 2026

SDR Television v1.0.6 February 13th, 2026: A new kit, lots of receive improvements since the last official kit. As with any software project, there's always room for improvements and new features, but for now here's a stable solution which works well with the QO-100 satellite. Downloads are at the bottom of this page.

SDR Console, Beta Feb 10th 2026

By Simon Brown • February 13, 2026

February 10th, 2026 Pluto Correct the FIR filter definitions, this has improved reception.

Adding A Radio Definition

By Simon Brown • December 27, 2025

Follow These Steps If you're unsure how you add a radio definition to SDR Console, here are the steps you must follow. Start SDR Console (quite obvious really). From the Home tab on the ribbon bar, in the Radio panel click Select Radio , the Select Radio window is displayed. At the bottom right of the Select Radio window, click Definitions... , the Radio Definitions window is displayed. At the top left of the Radio Definitions window click Search , a list of all supported radios is displayed. Select the radio you want to add, for example Airspy, SDRplay. In this example the RX-888 will be added. When you select an option from the list in step 4, either a radio is found or not. If the radio is found, a window is displayed with the option of adding the new definition. If the radio is not found, an error window is displayed. If this is a radio connected by USB, make sure the USB port can supply enough power. After adding the definition, click Save in the Radio Definitions window. You can now select your radio in the Select Radio window. That's all folks! SDRplay If you are using a SDRplay you select SDRplay > V3 in step 5 above. Make sure you have also installed either SDRconnect , SDRuno or the latest API (currently 3.15 at the time of writing).

Simon's World Map 1.5.4

By Simon Brown • December 19, 2025

Version 1.5.4 This release fixes a bug, improves the user interface. Download link is at the bottom of this page.

SDR Console, Beta Nov 1st 2025

By Simon Brown • November 1, 2025

November 1st, 2025 Analyser Analyser tag window change, as suggested by Jim. Analyser tags now saved and restored correctly. Analyser font size now supports small, medium and large. Analyser loads saved projects faster. Saving project now much faster and uses less memory. More display lines available if you have enough RAM: Less than 16GB then 50,000 lines. 16GB to 32GB then 100,000 lines. 32GB or more then 250,000 lines. Fixed minor font issue with definition window. Fixed issue scrolling when more than 32768 lines in display. Data File Playback Selecting a playback folder now creates the list of files much faster. Emulation Added a diagnostic check for the use of emulators. This code only works on W10 and above, so I dynamically load IsWow64Process2 from kernel32 which avoids issues on older versions of Windows. In the logfile you see something like this: 05:23:48.185: Vendor ....: GenuineIntel 05:23:48.185: Brand .....: Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 265K 05:23:48.185: - 05:23:48.185: x86 Emulation: 05:23:48.185: Process .......: 0x0000, "Not emulated" 05:23:48.185: Architecture ..: 0x8664, "AMD64" 05:23:48.185: - Favourites Updated the default 60m bandwidth. Changed Broadcast :: VHF CCIR title to Band II. Groups now have user-selectable files. Default definitions renames to main. Changed the ribbon bar, Selection entry to Options (see image below). The dropdown options have been replaced with a single window, allowing more room for text. Locked Receivers If the program is stopped or a favourite created when a receiver is locked, this caused problems with the receiver being locked but no indication. With this kit receiver lock state is not applied in a favourite definition. Logfile Automatically save the logfile when closing, really added so I can check program responding correctly to Shutdown and Restart. Old logfiles are purged after the program has been running for one minute. Logging Added logbook FA option as below, FA is the command to read/write RX1. Narrow FM Added 150Hz CTCSS squelch tone. De-emphasis is now optional, selected from: Ribbon bar, Receive, Mode..., Narrow FM. Persistent Display Got a crash inside the persistent display logic, my sanity checks weren't good enough so have improved this. Remote Server After connecting to a remote server, the input fields can now be edited to change connection parameters. Ribbon Bar View panel tidied up. Signal Meter (SMeter) Added more presets for the Signal meter, Ribbon bar, View, Spectrum, Signal Meter. Spectran ECO Changed SPECTRAN path order to pick up DLLs from the SDK folder rather than the main folder. Status Bar GPU, Audio entries on status bar now optional, selected from Program Options, Performance, CPU Memory. System Shutdown / Restart If SDR Console is running when the system shuts down or restarts then SDR Console closes gracefully. What happens - five seconds after SDR Console receives the SHUTDOWN message a timer calls the OnClose() processing, so you have five seconds to about the shutdown / restart. Text Size Fonts now scale correctly when a non-default Accessibility > Text Size is selected (see image).