Hi Rob,

I'm wondering if you are working towards running wsprdaemon with SDR Play devices on a headless Raspberry Pi 4 

Regards,
John VK4CT

Rob posted this last month....will be fantastic if the other SDRs can be incorporated like that...

"For those of you who don't join our Wednesday 18:00 UTC Zoom call, I thought it would be useful to let you know that I am actively working on a major new version of WD which will include these major new features:

1) Support for the new FST4W transmission modes added in WSJT-x V2.3.0, in particular the 5,15, and 30 minute packets.  Each band configured to receive them  will consume up to 100+ MBytes of space in /tmp/wsprdaemon 
2) Support for additional SDRs supported by the SoapyAPI service.  These include SDRPlay, RTL-SDR, Red Pitaya and many others.

It may be several weeks before I have a v3.0 release candidate running at the beta sites, but I wanted WD users that it is still under active development."

Hi Bruce,
Thank you for getting me up to date.
Yes - will be a fantastic way to go forward.
Regards,
John VK4CT / VK4EMM

There is already alpha level SDRPlay support in the WD 3.0 client.
I have just finished deploying the WD 3.0 servers needed to support the WD 3.0 clients and have the clients running at several sites.
Once I have debugged all the legacy features in 3.0 I'll work on the SDRPlay and other devices.

I happened to notice on Aliexpress (search for 'RSP1') there are a ton of RSP1 clones based on the msi2500 chip, that have either a single input with DIP switches for input filtering, or are equipped with 5 separate filtered inputs for different ranges (snapshots attached)....though for HF there is only a single "0-30 MHz" filter.  The pricing (generally <$20) would make them very competitive with the humble RTL-SDR dongles, though I haven't seen any performance tests for this new RSP1 clone "flavor".

If the new wspardaemon version happens to work with this variety of an RSP1 clone and if the performance at least matches that of the RTL-SDR, this could be a very interesting option for WSPR spotting.

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for that post.  I have ordered one of those clones from ebay if only to compare it against my RP2.

I had my RP2 working with WD 3.0 last year, and I will check to see if that code is still working.  

The big issue with using any of those SDRs for VHF/UHF WSPR is calibrating its frequency settings.  I can drive the RP2 from my Bodnar to get 1 hz accuracy and stability,  but even an RTL-SDR is stable enough to decode WSPR on 23 cm if I can calibrate its tuning.   That RP clone doesn't appear to have an external clock input option, so I can use the "calibrate against a local ATSC pilot carrier' if those can be trusted.


I have

Unfortunately upon surveying  > 30 OTA HDTV broadcasts here on Colorado 's Front Range with my GPSDO referenced 0-2 GHz Frequency Extender, hearing HDTV ATSC pilot carriers from well South of Denver up to the Wyoming border, I find almost *NONE* of them on the 'correct' ATSC spot. They are generally within 1 kHz (FCC spec?) but they deliberately offset in order to avoid QRMing each other. Unless you can get the engineer-in-charge to tell you what their exact offset is (if they know it) I don't think these signals are nearly as useful as first hoped.

So much for using ATSC for the truly accurate frequency information it might otherwise provide. It's slated to disappear anyway...

--

First of all these are clones of the way outdated version RSP1, not the later RSP1a. And also the "designer" tells it is a simplified design.
So I would not be to hopeful on performance.
If it will work with the needed latest official SDRplay API versions needs to be seen as well.

Well, one can always hope.

Cheers

On Thu, May 26, 2022 at 11:20 PM, Rob Robinett wrote:

... I have ordered one of those clones from ebay if only to compare it against my RP2.
...The big issue with using any of those SDRs for VHF/UHF WSPR is calibrating its frequency settings

Thanks Rob, looking forward to hearing how well it works.  I ordered one as well from Aliexpress - the one with five SMA filter inputs.  The main difference versus the single input with the DIP switches is bandwidth claimed (2 GHz versus 1 GHz for the 5 inputs).  Presumably all of those 5 SMA inputs add enough extra capacitance to roll things off at a lower frequency.  They claim there is a 0.5 ppm TXCO on board so perhaps after calibrating against a GPSDO the accuracy will be good enough for VHF/UHF WSPR.  Unless you can swamp out the TXCO by feeding it a stronger external clock, perhaps.  In any event, even given the outdated RSP1 design, it would be a significant upgrade from the RTL-SDR direct mode for HF, with those extra bits as well as the lack of aliasing for the >14.4 MHz region, not to mention the much wider bandwidth, and similar cost.