PySDR: A Guide to SDR and DSP Using Python | Hacker News Reader

PySDR: A Guide to SDR and DSP Using Python

pysdr.org

230 pointskklisura13 comments

This is an excellent resource. I'm not a DSP expert, but I work in the field, and this is usually the first resource I go to when I need to re-familiarize myself with some basics.

I am a dsp expert. I still find it's explanations delightful and useful perspectives. Also very good for new team members who are better at code than dsp, which is most of them.

Thanks both. Appreciate the insight.

I am currently learning with this book. It has a very good practical and engineering oriented guide, I would recommend it!

Also the mentioned and covered hardware is cheap to get, I am currently using a RTL-SDR from nooelec and for learning the basics you have to invest like 50 euros, which is fair IMO.

RTL-SDR is not for beginners only, it is great cheap every day SDR with known parameters. If you know what you are doing, RTL-SDR solves 90% of your receiving tasks. It is noisy in some frequency range, it has spurious signals, it is only 8 bit, but professionals easily deal with all there things. As you learn more in radio world, RTL-SDR open new opportunities for you and will never die as a receiver. Later you will start writing your software for it to process I/Q samples.

Thank you, thats good to know! I am currently exploring how to process IQ samples. You mentioned its noisy in some frequency ranges, do you happen to know which?

I spent some time reading the later chapters which are what I'm fuzziest on. It's nice to have the python code there. I do overall think this is a good resource. However, the hand-waviness of the specifics gets to me. The author even admits at one point that there was theory behind choosing specific constants that they won't get into. But they don't say how I can figure that out. Did example, if I know my preamble length and maximum frequency offset, how do I choose loop parameters to lock on within the needed time but stay stable? I have no clue. Would've been nice to get pointed in the right direction.

I would like to see references out to less hand wavy material. It’s a free resource, so I’m not going to complain too hard. Gnarly windowing effects on the square wave example in the first chapter; I do think if you’re going to show something like that, you should show that it’s dependent on sample rate and duration. Maybe that’s coming later in the text. To be fair, the perfect train of sinusoids you get in a linear systems class is equally unrealistic.

Did example, if I know my preamble length and maximum frequency offset, how do I choose loop parameters to lock on within the needed time but stay stable? I have no clue. Would've been nice to get pointed in the right direction.

It's heresy to suggest such a thing around here: but, seriously: ask an LLM.

Everybody now has access to their own personal graduate-level TA. Use it. The learning process, from this point forward, is all about learning to ask the right questions.

I spent the last week reading a great deal about SDR and researching the current radio market, realized I really missed listening to the radio and figured I better get back to it now while there are still radio stations to listen too. Ended up ordering a Tecsun PL-880 since if I am going to use the computer for this, I might as well just stream. I still might dig into SDR if I end up wanting more than what the Tecsun offers since I have no interest in having a pile of radios or even a large desktop radio.

I love your logo and Fourier animation. Thank you for sharing your time and effort on this.

IQ mod/demod finally clicked for me!

Wow! Thank you!!!

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