Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark Fahey, who shares the following tweet from KiwiSDR:
“Happy Holidays. Software update brings integrated DRM receiver (Digital Radio Mondiale) based on Dream 2.1.1 to all KiwiSDRs. Stock BeagleBone-Green/Black based Kiwis support one DRM channel, BeagleBone-AI Kiwis support four. Development work continues.”
Ironically, I had only recently published a post asking if anyone had ever attempted to decode DRM using a KiwiSDR. Turns out, several readers had by porting the IQ audio output into the DREAM application. Now that KiwiSDR will have a native DRM mode, this will no longer be necessary.
Many thanks, Mark, for sharing this tip! As you say, this is “mega news!”
The performance of any receiver should be against the performance of
https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/iis/en/doc/ks/fks/DRM_Monitoring_Receiver_DT700_Englisch.pdf or https://www.rfmondial.com/fileadmin/downloads/Specification_RFmondial_DRM_Monitoring_Receiver_RF-SE.pdf
The software used is listed below.
https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/iis/en/doc/ks/bb/DRM_Receiver_Kit_Flyer_Englisch.pdf.
I am aware that professional products are expensive.
Just looked on a SDR in UAE with me only listening to AIR on 7550 kHz on 2109
Signal is S7 over S3 noise or 14,5 db SNR
Nearly nothing could be heard as far as i could wait for 5 minutes
Test in Italy 2128z 17.5db SNR with decoding problems timeouts and audio breaks
i m sure that we have to wait quite long tll all probems could be solved unless tKIWI find a way to
DRM is a tricky thing. You can have a strong signal with good SNR but still get drop-outs or no MSC (main service channel) lock. All due to excessive selective fading which is too much for the amount of error correction and other options the broadcaster has chosen to transmit. If you set the waterfall max/min controls properly on the Kiwi the fading is easier to see. Even for extremely strong signals.
Or it could just be problems with the Kiwi DRM implementation. When I get more time I need to do side-by-side comparisons with Dream running in parallel on the same IQ stream.
JKS hey I didn’t know you read this blog! Since your eyeballs are hear thank you SOOOO much for developing the KIwiSDR – I think it is the most amazing device!
I have three, being used for various things. 2 are used privately in North-East Asia (not publicly accessible) for my work monitoring North Korean propaganda, but my Freemans Reach KiwiSDR back in Australia is available for all to tune.
http://mediaexplorer.ddns.net:8073
Thanks for all your efforts, its amazing for all of us to have the ability to relocate ourselves to hundreds of shacks and antennas around the planet and listen just as we were actually there!
One has to wonder whether this will help spur ICOM to introduce this capability in the 8600 and 7300 receiver/transceivers…
There’s really nothing to listen to, but at least now you can listen to it in crystal clear digital audio. 😉
Bjarne is absolutely correct. However, things are changing fast. Already I have tested some changes that allow one DRM session plus three other “regular” connections for a Kiwi in 4-channel mode (see the Kiwi forum for the latest info). This assumes the three other users are well behaved. If they fire up the FFT-intensive WSPR or SSTV extensions then things fall apart. So some coordination in the user interface is required.
This is great news! I’ve used Dream with KiwiSDR’s in an attempt to receive Shortwave Radiogram’s broadcasts in DRM over WINB. I usually spend 30 minutes or so tweaking it trying to get some audio and it’s usually spotty at best. I hope this will spur interest in more development of the software and greater deployment of DRM. Fingers crossed!
Readers should take notice in the tweet’s last words: “Development work continues”. One should also be aware that DRM is restricted to one single user (at least for now). Which means that you can’t access a Kiwi for DRM listening if there are other users connected. And if you do find one, no other users will be able to connect as long as the DRM extension is in use. These issues may or may not be resolved. Due to the traffic load on my Kiwis KongSDR and ArcticSDR, DRM mode is disabled.