{"id":43243,"date":"2020-05-10T09:32:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T13:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=43243"},"modified":"2020-05-12T06:45:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T10:45:39","slug":"build-an-sdr-station-and-balcony-antenna-farm-for-less-than-150-euros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/build-an-sdr-station-and-balcony-antenna-farm-for-less-than-150-euros\/","title":{"rendered":"Build an SDR station and balcony antenna farm for less than 150 Euros"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE 11 May 2020:<\/strong> We recently learned that the MSI.SDR software defined radio dongle in the following post and tutorial is a clone of the SDRplay RSP1<\/a> SDR. We did not realize this when the post was published. Grayhat had done research prior to purchase and believed it not to be a clone, but only using the same chipset as the RSP1 (hence the compatibility with SDRuno). We have confirmed that it is indeed a clone now via SDRplay (clear here to read more via the excellent RTL-SDR blog<\/a>). What follows isn’t an SDR review. Indeed, Grahat’s post has little to do with the receiver and much, much more to do with building proper antennas! We’ve removed links to the MSI.SDR and would encourage you to invest in the excellent SDRplay RSP1a<\/a> instead (click here<\/a> to read our RSP1a review). Thank you for understanding!<\/em>
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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Grayhat, who shares the following guest post. He lives in Italy and has been in lock-down since the beginning of the pandemic. He pitched the idea of building an entire SDR setup from scratch–receiver and antennas–for less than 150 Euros (roughly $163 USD). I thought it was a brilliant idea and I believe he thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of sourcing the components and building a mini antenna farm on his balcony while in quarantine:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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From Zero to SDR<\/h1>\n

by Grayhat<\/strong><\/p>\n

What follows doesn\u2019t pretend to be some kind of \u201cdefinitive guide\u201d or \u201clast word\u201d, on the contrary, it\u2019s aimed at people who have little or no experience with SDR but want to try putting together a decent station without paying an arm and a leg.<\/p>\n

The idea of writing this came to me after reading a number of messages and discussions on various online groups\/forums, in a lot of cases, someone bought an SDR (usually the ones coming with a telescopic whip antenna), and after connecting it was expecting it \u201cjust to work\u201d or, better said, pretending that the SDR connected to that whip (usually placed on a table right near the computer) could receive ANY POSSIBLE signal, including transmissions coming from the \u201cdark side of the moon.\u201d \ud83d\ude42 Those folks got scared by the fact that the SDR \u201cdidn\u2019t work\u201d and decided to give up; now, this short \u201cguide\u201d\u00a0 should allow anyone to setup what\u2019s needed to have a working SDR<\/p>\n

My self-imposed limitations for this project\/experiment were the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The whole setup shouldn\u2019t cost more than 150 Euros so that, if after trying the SDR one doesn\u2019t like it, (s)he won\u2019t have paid $$$, otherwise, if (s)he decides to keep it, the resulting station will allow for further expansion\/improvement<\/li>\n
  2. The available space was considered to be that of an apartment, that is, no large field to put up huge wire antennas or to raise towers, the limit was the one of a balcony (in my home) that is 8 meters (max antenna length) by 3 meters (available height) by 2 meters (balcony width)<\/li>\n
  3. The whole setup should be simple and straightforward, no need to solder components or to build special types of antennas<\/li>\n
  4. Given the current Covid-19 sheltering, most components should be available online, while for others one may arrange with whatever is locally available (e.g. duct tape)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With the above limitations in mind, I took pencil, paper and rubber eraser (high-tech instruments, indeed) and started writing down a list of the needed stuff, after some writing, wiping and second thought, I came out with the following list, available on Amazon:<\/p>\n

    Bill of materials<\/h2>\n