Lesson 1 — FM broadcast receiver with RTL-SDR

Recommendations for Working with SDR

• If setting up an antenna, try to keep it from either laying down on the table or from touching anything. Weird patterns will show up otherwise.
• Organize and keep cords wrapped around things - as your work starts to grow bigger, it’s harder to keep track of everything, so make sure you start out as organized as possible. Put labels on things, if you need to.

Flowgraphs

lesson01b_RTL_SDR_FM.grc

Running: 88.7 MHz, no antenna connected, so you see mostly noise:

Other flowgraphs for this lesson:

• lesson01a_RTL_SDR_Test.grc
• lesson01c_airplane_comms.grc
• lesson01d_RTL_SDR_HAM_NBFM.grc
• lesson01e_RTL_SDR_ExploreBand.grc

All GNURadio flowgraphs are at https://github.com/gallicchio/learnSDR