Be careful with SDR's. One minute you're scrolling around the spectrum, and the next you'll find yourself ordering parts for a 36 element Yagi and AZ/EL rotator, and a $3k radio to do Earth Moon Earth bounce communication.
Table of contents & the books description seem a little gloomy to anyone else?
GNU Radio, filters, AM/FM, IQ demod ... I remember working through all these topics on GNU Radio Tutorials wiki [0] but I don't know if the book offers anything more of value?
Also, if the authors focus on GNU Radio as their software stack why would they not include a chapter on creating your own Python Blocks which is the biggest upside (imo) to GNU Radio. I love SDRs and think anyone interested in electrical engineering should play around with them. I dont know if I'd recommend this book based off what the sample chapter 4 provided.
I think sending people directly to GNU Radio is a bit of a risk. Sending folks that just learned how to spell SDR deep into the bowels of DSP is a bit steep of a learning curve that many might equate with a brick wall.
A little over ten years ago (!) I got started with a windows box, sdrsharp and a cheap RTL-based SDR. Just cruising around the spectrum, clicking on signals that were interesting, cobbling together decoding pipelines and getting real results was a way better way for me. Getting started with software that works and interesting use cases you can get into with cheap hardware got me hooked and THEN I had something that I was genuinely craving an understanding of to drive me into GNU Radio.
There used to be an all-in-one boot image for the raspberry pi:
https://github.com/luigifcruz/pisdr-image
Unfortunately it appears to have been abandoned ...
There's the similar DragonOS for the Raspberry Pi.
Tried playing with SDR a while back. Back then, biggest challenge was to find an appropriate hardware that can receive at various frequencies and also compatible with my Linux box.
Rtlsdr are extremely cheap to start with. Then maybe Hackrf one? They're all (?) trivial to use on Linux these days.
If you want to go even a step up in the trvial to use ladder, there's the Portapack H4m project. It builds on the HackRF One and adds a screen, custom firmware (open source, extensible) into an handheld factor and lets you do a bunch of... _stuff_ without needing a computer :) Also not _that_ expensive, I got mine for about 400€ from lab401.
Thats how Russ Hanneman made his money.
ROI?
If anyone wants ideas, try and get on the WISPR network! All you need is like 20 ft of wire and an SDR and you can listen to signals from across the ocean easy.
Literally me right now, got my first SDR less than a month ago because I wanted to have an FM radio for emergencies and I am designing antennas and studying for my amateur radio license.
Good luck with the license! There's lots of people on Mastodon that chat about radio stuff.
Confirming this. Sounds like a joke but suddenly Ali knows just how how to snipe you with radio equipment offers...
I was already building a homelab, and was eyeing SDR and Meshtastic gear.
One of the few hobbies in my adhd/ult life that has sucked me in and spat me out precisely as described
What’s ult?
adult with adhd I assume?
$3k is barely getting started. Literally barely getting started.
But you love it anyway
My buddy is one of the top station builders and contesters. He says it is a about $10,000 per tower. And one tower won't do.
And then there's the license upgrades!
Only 3K to bounce shit off the moon?
Can be done more cheaply if tou are good at reusing things and building.
No... 3k just for the radio - actually, an IC-9700 is about $2k now.
Then add the yagi antenna, az/el moon tracker, amplifier, coax, etc. It really starts to add up.
I've never done this but I've worked a bunch of satellites and the ISS repeater. It's generally the same stuff, just a bit more powerful and precise.