Radio Astronomy Capability of SDRAngel

[StricklySpeaking]

There is a software package I have worked with for some time called SDRAngle. This package interfaces with most types of SDR receivers/radios. Reciently one of the developers working with this package contributed a nice set of Radio Astronomy tools. The RA list published on the SDRAngel reflector includes:

This patch adds a Radio Astronomy plugin. It supports:

• A spectrometer for displaying time averaged spectra.
• A radiometer for displaying time averaged continuum measurements (total power).
• Calibration to enable measurements to be displayed as noise temperatures (K), power (dBm/Watts) and spectral flux density (Jy).
• Utilities are included for estimation and calculation of noise temperature components (Tsys, Trx, Tgal, Tatm, Tsky, Tsp) and sensitivity (sigma Tsys and sigma Sv).
• Spectra can be displayed against frequency and velocity (with a configurable reference spectral line), with the velocity adjusted to topocentric, Solar System barycentric or the Local Standard of Rest (LSR) reference frames.
• Calculation and plotting of radial and Galactocentric distance to HI clouds, based on spectral peaks.
• Position of HI clouds can be sent to Star Tracker plugin for visualisation on the Galactic line-of-sight image and created in to an animation mapping out the Milky Way's spiral arms.
• A Gaussian fitting tool in the spectrometer for HI cloud kinetic temperature and column density estimation.
• A Gaussian fitting tool in the radiometer to enable antenna HPBW measurement from Solar drift-scans.
• Ability to record and plot real-time surface air temperature and other sensor measurements (component voltages / temperatures) alongside radiometer measurements.
• Ability to export charts to animated .png files and static image files.
• Reference spectra from the LAB (Leiden/Argentine/Bonn) Galactic HI survey can be automatically downloaded and plotted for comparison against user measurements.
• 2D sweeps can be made and plotted in different coordinate systems (Az/El, Galactic, offsets around a target and drift scans).
• All spectra are held in memory and can be scrolled through.
• Data can be saved and loaded from .csv files.
• Hardware for calibration (E.g. RF switches) can be automatically controlled.

It also includes some updates to the Star Tracker feature:

• Plot Sun and Moon on sky temperature chart.
• Plot markers on Galactic line-of-sight chart.
• Create animations from Galactic line-of-sight chart.
• Allow weather at antenna location to be downloaded from openweathermap.org
• Allow target to be entered as Galactic longitude / latitude.
• Add azimuth and elevation offsets to support scans around targets.
• Add S7, S8 and S9 targets.
• Refactor some code from GUI to main plugin, so computed values can be used in other plugins.

SDRAngle is free software that can be downloaded at:

https://github.com/sdrangel

The plugin for the tools listed above is at:

https://github.com/f4exb/sdrangel/releases/tag/v6.17.0

SDRAngel works with Linux and Windows. The package has been proted to Raspberry Pi also. As with all SDR packages your performance will be best if the computer you use has a good CPU speed and lots of memory. So the RPi can be marginal solution.

SDRAngle has a lot of capability and as a result can be a bit overwhelming to bring up. However, the capability of the package is impresive. I have cloned the GitHub repository and then followed the instructions to build the package. Then build an install the plugins.

Then watch a couple of Youtube videos to learn how to operate the tool.

The original developer of the package is Edouard Griffiths F4EXB and the RA contribution was done by Jon Srcejon. Both of these fellows and others are very active in continuing to develop this package which is already mature. There is an active email reflector.

You are expected to do your own research and read the instructions provided.

I am posting this here becase it does look like a good colection of useful tools for this group. One interesting thing is the ability to get a noise figure reading.

Bob N5BRG

 

[Anthony]

Hi,

I Just tried getting SDRangel, running on one of my dev Windows 10 laptops. The software popped up, but did not recognize my RTL SDR dongle. I moved some of the menu screens around, but couldn't get them back into position. No reset button or default settings, like SDR#.

I even uninstalled it, cleaned out the files and reinstalled and SDRangel still popped up with all the displayed menus missing. Even tried unchecking the menu buttons, nothing. In full screen, you can move it, so you have to uncheck full screen, go to each side and adjust the view, then use full screen. The first time I installed it, I could move it in full screen?

Maybe it works better for Mac OSX or Linux.  After 30 minutes of fighting with it, I decided it wasn't in my humble opinion, user friendly.  I'll stick with Virgo, SDR# and SDR Scanner for now.

Please let me know if anyone else is able to get this software to run. I looked at the github repo details, but still could not get it to run. 

Thanks. 

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[StricklySpeaking]

Did you follow instructions at:

https://github.com/f4exb/sdrangel/wiki/Quick-start

You must have your RTL-SDR connected to your computer and any other SDR device you may have that you want to use. I have run multiple RTL-SDRs, Pluto, Hack RF, and others all at the same time. When the program starts it comes up assuming a file source which works with recorded data stream files.  So you select the upper left double arrows as shown in the example and you should find your RTL-SDR listed.  Then in the right side window you pick the + next to "channels" and select the type of demodulator you want. Then you hit the blue boxed ">" play symbol in upper left and the demodulation will start with a waterfall in the middle. You can add Sink and Source devices and other channel types to do multiple radios in receive or transmit. Requires understanding of Digital Signal Process to set the sample rates and filtering.

SDRAngle has a great deal of capability and with this comes difficulty in getting started. Thats why I suggested watching a youtube on it . If you prefer simpler packages which just require a few clicks and do preset operations for you then by all means you should stay with other programs.

Bob N5BRG

[Anthony]

You're funny! 

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[bsn...@gmail.com]

This URL, https://rgetz.github.io/sdrangel/, provides some indication of level of difficulty to be expected with this software:

" SDRangel is intended for the power user. We expect you to already have some experience with SDR applications and digital signal processing in general. SDRangel might be a bit overwhelming for you however you are encouraged to use the discussion group above to look for help. You can also find more information in the Wiki."

Thanks for the link but I have "simpler fish to fry" at the moment!  :-)

....bill n1ecp....

[Marcus D. Leech]

On 2021-10-17 12:13 p.m., bsn...@gmail.com wrote:

This URL, https://rgetz.github.io/sdrangel/, provides some indication of level of difficulty to be expected with this software:

" SDRangel is intended for the power user. We expect you to already have some experience with SDR applications and digital signal processing in general. SDRangel might be a bit overwhelming for you however you are encouraged to use the discussion group above to look for help. You can also find more information in the Wiki."

Thanks for the link but I have "simpler fish to fry" at the moment!  :-)

....bill n1ecp....

MY experience over the last 40-odd years of being in software development/technical development/systems support, etc, etc, is that there is very little software
  out there that is just uniformly "bad".  Rather, it simply doesn't "fit" well with the cognitive patterns of some fraction of its users.  This has very little to do with
  either *user or developer* ineptitude, but just a property of human cognition.

In my own software, I have tried exceedingly hard over the years to make it "friendly" for everyone.  I consistently fail at that.  Having worked running a
  tech-support help-desk for several years for a high-tech company, I can tell you that even the very smartest people sometimes don't "resonate" with software
  that others find completely and utterly the "bees knees".

The problem, as I've observed before, is that while software is very often configuration in terms of appearance, it is only exceedingly rarely configurable in terms
  of "how does the work-flow work". It is at this point where whatever your cognitive patterns are comes into play.    I'm not sure there's a good solution.
  Attempts by the Software industry to "make things better" have frequently been bloody awful.   For example, the Gnome folks actually hired a cog-sci person
  to help design their UI for Gnome 3.  It was awful for most people, but some absolutely loved it.

All that being said, I have no personal opinion of SDRAngel one way or another.  Just general observations from decades of being in software and
  tech development.