Software to use a Realtek RTL2832 based DVB dongle as an SDR receiver
Original project page: http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr
These instructions were tested on OS X 10.11 'El Capitan'
- Mac OS Developer Tools (might be able to just install
gcc
directly, not sure) - Homebrew (to install other dependencies)
- cmake - install with
brew install cmake
(you can also use autotools, per the documentation) - libusb1.0 - install with
brew install libusb
git clone <desired fork of code>
cd rtl-sdr
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_MACOSX_RPATH=ON
- if this gives an error related to libusb, make sure it is installed
brew install libusb
- If you don't want binaries installed to
/usr/local
, you can set the install location withcmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/wherever
- if this gives an error related to libusb, make sure it is installed
make
sudo make install
(ormake install
if you are installing to a non-privileged location)
- Plug in the RTL-SDR dongle
- If desired, check using the System Information tool, most should enumerate as "RTL2832U" or similar
- Run
rtl_test
and verify that it does not produce errors - To test demodulation, install Sox (to enable commandline audio playback)
brew install sox
rtl_fm -M wbfm -s 200000 -r 48k -f 90.9M | play -traw -r48k -es -b16 -c1 -V1 -
- This didn't work particularly well for me; I had to use the
-F 0
or-F 9
filter options, to hear anything but the strongest broadcast FM stations - This worked better:
./rtl_fm -M wbfm -s 256k -r 24k -f 90.1M -g 20 -F 0 | play -traw -r24k -es -b16 -c1 -V1 -
- Generally you have to play with the bandwidth (
-s
option) based on the signal; for FM broadcast, something around 256k seems to work fairly well.
- This didn't work particularly well for me; I had to use the