SDRPlay RSP1 (SZ-PLAZA) receiver support in Gqrx

[Răzvan Sandu]

Hello, SDR radio users,

Many thanks for Alexandru, the author of Gqrx, for offering us the chance to use SDR radio in GNU/Linux!

I was wondering if any of you own this nice SDRPlay RSP1 (SZ-PLAZA) receiver (2 pictures attached) and if there is any chance to make it work in Gqrx.

The board seems to be manufactured by the Chinese https://www.sz-plaza.com for SDRPlay (https://www.sdrplay.com/) and claims to be usable in GNU/Linux, Windows and Android. However, I was unable to make it work with the pre-compiled Gqrx that comes in Fedora 37 Workstation (gqrx-2.15.9-3.fc37.x86_64, gnuradio-3.10.3.0-4.fc37.x86_64, gr-osmosdr-0.2.3-30.20210217gita100eb02.fc37.x86_64).

Chipset seems to be MSI2500 MSI001.

Device USB identifier is "1df7:2500"; full hardware details are available at h-node.org, here:

https://h-node.org/acquisitioncards/view/en/2321/SDR-ham-radio-receiver-based-om-MSI2500-MSI001-chipset

In Windows, the receiver works quite nice in SDRuno (version 1.42-1014) and SDR-Console (version 3.2). SDR-Console identifies it as being SDRPlay RSP1 compatible - it says:

Name=RSP1

Model=RSP1

Frequency=0-2000 MHz (according to manufacturer, it's up to 1 GHz only! )

Serial=B0002P0003_00CE6578

Address=HW=1, SN=B0002P0003_00CE6578

Thank you for any details or possible ideas on how to make it work in GNU/Linux.

Best regards,

Răzvan

[Mike Bott]

Definitely NOT a SDRplay RSP1.  https://www.sdrplay.com/rsp1/

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[Răzvan Sandu]

Hello,

Yes, I know: SDRPlay RSP1 it's just the closest identification I was able to find about this receiver.

Thank you for any further detail you can share: I'm just trying to make it work in GNU/Linux.

Best regards,

Răzvan

[Chris Vine]

If it really is a RSP1A clone electronically then it should work (gqrx works fine with my RSP1A), but you will need the proprietary SDRPlay driver (either version 2.13.1 or version 3.*).  Don't bother recompiling gr-osmosdr against the driver once you have the driver installed - the direct gr-osmosdr support for SDRPlay doesn't work with recent versions of either the version 2 or version 3 drivers.  Instead make sure you have soapy installed (with gr-osmosdr compiled against soapy) and use either the SoapySDRPlay2 plugin (https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDRPlay2.git) for version 2 or the SoapySDRPlay3 plugin (https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDRPlay3) for version 3.  Then use gr-osmosdr's soapy backend with a 'soapy=0, driver=sdrplay' device string.

[Chris Vine]

By the way, I prefer the version 2 driver to the version 3 driver because it doesn't require you to run the driver as a daemon, and with the RSP1 it is just as good as the version 3 driver because that device only has one A/D converter channel.  Since you say your device works under windows using SDRuno, it should work also under the SoapySDRPlay plugins with the proprietary SDRPlay driver.  The driver string should be 'soapy=0,driver=sdrplay' (no space).  Other possibly useful options are rfnotch_ctrl=true and dabnotch_ctrl=true.  After you have soapy installed, running SoapySDRUtil --probe will tell you more.

[Chris Vine]

I have just updated gr-osmosdr with a pull on its git repository and I noticed there was a commit of 28 Dec 2022, commit d75ccf82, with the comment "Re-add mirisdr support".  I installed libmirisdr-5 from https://github.com/ericek111/libmirisdr-5.git and recompiled gr-osmosdr against it, and it works mainly OK with my RSP1A and gqrx.  The device string is 'miri=0'.

An oddity is that when the DSP has not been started by pressing the start button, copious '0' characters are printed to the console; this stops when you start processing.  In addition there seems no way of setting the AM/FM notch or the DAB notch.  If you can put up with that and you don't want to use the SDRPlay proprietary drivers this should work for you.  Otherwise soapy with the proprietary drivers would be better.