rtl_sdr(1)

💖 rtl_sdr — the I/Q recorder glow-up 💖

okay so welcome to the rtl_sdr(1) page bestie, this is the manual for rtl-sdr, aka an I/Q recorder for RTL2832 based DVB-T receivers 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

rtl-sdr — an I/Q recorder for RTL2832 based DVB-T receivers 🦋

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So basically you take a DVB-T receiver, repurpose it, and boom — it's a software defined radio that receives signals in I/Q data form. This was written for the osmocom rtl-sdr project and is incorporated in it, periodt 💅

In-Phase and Quadrature Phase data can faithfully represent all of the information in a band of frequencies centered on a carrier signal frequency. iconic honestly.

There is so much software available for the RTL2832. Most of the user-level packages rely on the librtlsdr library, which comes as part of the rtl-sdr codebase. That codebase has both the library itself and a bunch of command line tools like rtl_test, rtl_sdr, rtl_tcp, and rtl_fm. Those command line tools use the library to test for the existence of RTL2832 devices and to do basic data transfer functions to and from the device. the range?? unmatched 😭

And because most RTL2832 devices connect over USB, the librtlsdr library depends on the libusb library to talk to the device. no cap.

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🫶 USAGE 🫶

This program captures information from a band of frequencies and outputs the data in a form that's useful to other software radio programs. it's giving "glue code but make it gorgeous" ✨

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⭐ SYNOPSIS ⭐

rtl_adsb [-f freq] [OPTIONS] [output file]

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -f frequency_to_tune_to [Hz] — tell it what frequency to tune to, in Hz 🌈
• -s samplerate — sets the samplerate (default: 2048000 Hz) 🎀
• -d device_index — which device you're grabbing (default: 0) 🦋
• -g gain — the gain (default: 0 for auto) ✨
• -b output_block_size — the output block size (default: 16 * 16384) 💜
• -n number of samples to read — how many samples to read (default: 0, infinite) 👑
• -S — force sync output (default: async) 🔥
• tfilename — the output filename (a '-' dumps samples to stdout) 💖

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Example: to tune to 392.0 MHz, and set the sample-rate to 1.8 MS/s, use:

./rtl_sdr /tmp/capture.bin -s 1.8e6 -f 392e6

...to record samples to a file or to forward the data to a fifo 🍓

If the device can't be opened, make sure you have the appropriate rights to access the device (install udev-rules from the repository, or run it as root). do NOT skip this step bestie, it's the number one cause of tears 😭

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🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

• gnuradio(1)
• RTL-SDR wiki documentation: http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr
• Other rtl-sdr programs:
  • rtl_adsb(1), rtl_eeprom(1), rtl_fm(1), rtl_tcp(1), rtl_test(1)

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

This manual page was written by Maitland Bottoms for the Debian project (but may be used by others). thank you for your service 🫡💖

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright (c) 2013 A. Maitland Bottoms <bottoms@debian.org>

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

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and that's the whole page bestie — RTL-SDR, version 0.5.0, dated rtl_sdr(1). go forth and capture some vibes 💖✨🎀