Introduction: Network SDR - Lend Me Your Aerial and Radio!

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About: TekMaker is a channel designed to help people of all ages and abilities to learn about and build projects for Computers and Electronics. I worked in Electronics for 25+ years including design work and been in…

So my home situation limits the size of aerial I can put up and sometimes I want to cover bands that I don't have an antenna or dish for. I have also been looking at a new SDR receiver and would have loved the chance to try some other models out first. Now I can get some mileage out of websdr.org and it is possible to use others like KiwiSDR. But what if I want to use other decoders and compare reception in other locations? 

NOTE: you do not need an SDR for this to work!


Supplies

Just SDR# software

Step 1: Getting Started

So I remembered having done some remote radio networking connecting my computer to my Raspberry Pi. So I went to https://airspy.com/download/ and downloaded SDR# with Community Plugins. The plugins are small so do not take up much space on your system and the software is preconfigured which saves copying the .dll file and editing xml for those who are not confident at doing it.

So, where are the servers? 




I headed over to https://airspy.com/directory/, simply find a radio with a green (available) icon and click it. Click the url that starts with sdr:// on the left hand side and read to see what kit they are using and if that suits your needs. Then open SDR# and enter the url into the Airspy plugin box and click 'C' to connect. Once you have done this you can change radios and bring up the laps by clicking the triple dots ...

Here is my how to video https://youtu.be/ObjDIFR_b3k