rtl_power:(1)

📦 version 2.0.3, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 rtl_power:(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the User Commands corner of your terminal, because today we're talking about rtl_power: — the wideband spectrum monitor utility — from the osmocom rtl-sdr project. grab a snack, this one's a whole vibe. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

rtl_power: — wideband spectrum monitor utility. that's it, that's the name, she's simple and she's iconic. 💅

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

so basically: you take a re-purposed DVB-T receiver, you treat it like a software defined radio, and it receives signals in I/Q data form. it was written for, and is incorporated in, the osmocom rtl-sdr project. no cap. 🫶

🎀 USAGE 🎀

rtl_power, a simple FFT logger for RTL2832 based DVB-T receivers. periodt.

this tool gathers signal data over a very wide area of the frequency spectrum, and then that data can be used to find active areas of the spectrum. it's giving spectrum detective. 🔍✨

Use:

rtl_power -f freq_range [-options] [filename]
  • -f lower:upper:bin_size [Hz] — the main character option, literally required.
    • bin size is a maximum — smaller, more convenient bins will be used.
    • valid range is 1Hz - 2.8MHz.
  • [-i integration_interval] — default: 10 seconds.
⚠️ buggy if a full sweep takes longer than the interval. bestie I'm just the messenger. 😭
  • [-1] — enables single-shot mode (default: off).
  • [-e exit_timer] — default: off/0.
  • [-d device_index] — default: 0.
  • [-g tuner_gain] — default: automatic.
  • [-p ppm_error] — default: 0.
  • filename — a '-' dumps samples to stdout.
    • omitting the filename also uses stdout. so you literally cannot lose. 💖

🧚 Experimental options: 🧚

these are the "we're doing science" options, iykyk:

  • [-w window] — default: rectangle. options are: hamming, blackman, blackman-harris, hann-poisson, bartlett, youssef.
  • [-c crop_percent] — default: 0%, recommended: 20%-50%.
    • discards data at the edges, 100% discards everything.
    • has no effect for bins larger than 1MHz.
  • [-F fir_size] — default: disabled.
    • enables low-leakage downsample filter.
    • fir_size can be 0 or 9.
    • 0 has bad roll off.
    • try with '-c 50%'.
  • [-P] — enables peak hold (default: off).
  • [-D] — enable direct sampling (default: off).
  • [-O] — enable offset tuning (default: off).

📊 CSV FFT output columns: 📊

date, time, Hz low, Hz high, Hz step, samples, dbm, dbm, ...

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

okay so here's where it gets fun, these are literally the whole point:

rtl_power -f 88M:108M:125k fm_stations.csv

creates 160 bins across the FM band, individual stations should be visible. slay. 👑

rtl_power -f 100M:1G:1M -i 5m -1 survey.csv

a five minute low res scan of nearly everything. "nearly everything" is such a mood. 💀

rtl_power -f ... -i 15m -1 log.csv

integrate for 15 minutes and exit afterwards.

rtl_power -f ... -e 1h | gzip > log.csv.gz

collect data for one hour and compress it on the fly. the pipe is chef's kiss. 🤌

Convert CSV to a waterfall graphic with:

http://kmkeen.com/tmp/heatmap.py.txt

🙈 and now... the same thing again 🙈

yes bestie, the manpage really did say it twice. she said it again for the people in the back. keeping it 100% intact because the facts do not change:

rtl_power, a simple FFT logger for RTL2832 based DVB-T receivers.

Use:

rtl_power -f freq_range [-options] [filename]
  • -f lower:upper:bin_size [Hz]
    • bin size is a maximum, smaller more convenient bins will be used.
    • valid range 1Hz - 2.8MHz.
  • [-i integration_interval] — default: 10 seconds.
⚠️ buggy if a full sweep takes longer than the interval.
  • [-1] — enables single-shot mode (default: off).
  • [-e exit_timer] — default: off/0.
  • [-d device_index] — default: 0.
  • [-g tuner_gain] — default: automatic.
  • [-p ppm_error] — default: 0.
  • filename — a '-' dumps samples to stdout.
    • omitting the filename also uses stdout.

🧚 Experimental options: 🧚

  • [-w window] — default: rectangle.
    • hamming, blackman, blackman-harris, hann-poisson, bartlett, youssef.
  • [-c crop_percent] — default: 0%, recommended: 20%-50%.
    • discards data at the edges, 100% discards everything.
    • has no effect for bins larger than 1MHz.
  • [-F fir_size] — default: disabled.
    • enables low-leakage downsample filter.
    • fir_size can be 0 or 9.
    • 0 has bad roll off.
    • try with '-c 50%'.
  • [-P] — enables peak hold (default: off).
  • [-D] — enable direct sampling (default: off).
  • [-O] — enable offset tuning (default: off).

📊 CSV FFT output columns: 📊

date, time, Hz low, Hz high, Hz step, samples, dbm, dbm, ...
rtl_power -f 88M:108M:125k fm_stations.csv

creates 160 bins across the FM band, individual stations should be visible.

rtl_power -f 100M:1G:1M -i 5m -1 survey.csv

a five minute low res scan of nearly everything.

rtl_power -f ... -i 15m -1 log.csv

integrate for 15 minutes and exit afterwards.

rtl_power -f ... -e 1h | gzip > log.csv.gz

collect data for one hour and compress it on the fly.

Convert CSV to a waterfall graphic with:

http://kmkeen.com/tmp/heatmap.py.txt

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

the whole friend group, we love a crossover episode. 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

This manual page was written by Maitland Bottoms for the Debian project (but may be used by others). giving Debian, receiving credit, we love to see it. 💜

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.

🚨 bestie the warranty one is real — no warranty, none, zero, not even a little one. read the GPL for the deets.

and that's the whole page, mwah 💅 — this was RTL_SDR version 0.5.1, brought to you by the rtl_power:(1) manual. go scan something beautiful. ✨🌸🦋

📦 where this page comes from