Setting Up SDR

Supported Radios

SkyRoof uses the Soapy SDR engine to interface with the SDR radios. Currently it supports:

• Airspy Mini;
• SDRplay;
• RTL-SDR.

Note

It may be possible to add support of other SDR devices to SkyRoof. Contact me if you have an unsupported SDR and are willing to do extensive testing.

If you plan on using one of the SDRplay radios with SkyRoof, download the latest SDRplay API from their web site and install it on your system before starting the program.

Selecting an SDR device

Connect your SDR device to the computer, then click on Tools / SDR Devices in the main menu. This will open the SDR Devices dialog:

All active SDR devices are listed on the left panel. Click on the one that you want to use.

Configuring the device

The right panel shows all settings that the device driver understands. The setting names and descriptions (shown on the bottom panel) come from the driver, with two exceptions described below. For information about these settings see the documentation that comes with the radio.

The two settings, common to all radios, are:

• PPM - the correction factor for the SDR clock frequency, expressed in parts per million. This setting is important for the correct operation of the Doppler tracking algorithm, see the Calibrating PPM Correction section for details;

• Single Gain - when set to true, the SDR gain is controlled by the RF Gain slider on the toolbar. This is the recommended setting. When it is set to false, the settings in the Stage Gains are applied to the individual stages of the SDR, and the gain slider is disabled.

  Using Remote SDR

  SkyRoof can use SDR devices connected to a remote computer via the SoapyRemote driver. To enable remote access to SDR:

  • On the remote computer:
    • install the SoapySDRServer that comes with SoapySDR and run it.
  • In SkyRoof:

    • enable SoapyRemote in the Settings dialog;

    • enter the host and port number of the remote computer.

      

    • Open the SDR Devices dialog and select one of the remote SDR devices from the list.