RF receivers that can receive signals higher than 433Mhz?

[Cromulent]

I've been doing some Googling on the subject of RF receivers, and the only ones I can find are 433Mhz, but I'd like to get one which can go much higher than that. It would have to work with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

Can anyone suggest any hardware that might fit the bill? I know equipment exists that can go much higher (I've seen ones go above 10Ghz) but of course, they are much more expensive.

If anyone can make a suggestion, I'd appreciate it.

[The Traveler]

[EDIT] I misread the post and my original answer didn't address the question.

[pfletch101]

I've been doing some Googling on the subject of RF receivers, and the only ones I can find are 433Mhz, but I'd like to get one which can go much higher than that. It would have to work with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

Can anyone suggest any hardware that might fit the bill? I know equipment exists that can go much higher (I've seen ones go above 10Ghz) but of course, they are much more expensive.

If anyone can make a suggestion, I'd appreciate it.

Most software controlled receivers can go well above 433 MHz, and even relatively inexpensive (< $50) ones can go well into the 1-5 GHz range. You may have been misled by the fact that much of the interest in them comes from people who want to receive and decode signals from hardware that uses the license-free 433 kHz band. As long as you only want to receive signals, licensing is not an issue (in the US - it may be elsewhere). If you specify what you want to do/receive, people may be able to come up with more specific suggestions.

[bensimmo]

Depends on you frequency range, SDR-RTL can pick up say 50M to 2GHz regions.

You can get 868MHz as ggeneral door openers, switches and of course LoRa in the EU use this (often the 433 do this too).

[Cromulent]

I've been doing some Googling on the subject of RF receivers, and the only ones I can find are 433Mhz, but I'd like to get one which can go much higher than that. It would have to work with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

Can anyone suggest any hardware that might fit the bill? I know equipment exists that can go much higher (I've seen ones go above 10Ghz) but of course, they are much more expensive.

If anyone can make a suggestion, I'd appreciate it.

Most software controlled receivers can go well above 433 MHz, and even relatively inexpensive (< $50) ones can go well into the 1-5 GHz range. You may have been misled by the fact that much of the interest in them comes from people who want to receive and decode signals from hardware that uses the license-free 433 kHz band. As long as you only want to receive signals, licensing is not an issue (in the US - it may be elsewhere). If you specify what you want to do/receive, people may be able to come up with more specific suggestions.

I want to build a spectrum analyzer so the wider the frequency range it can receive the better.

[crofter]

hi

try sdr

[mfa298]

I want to build a spectrum analyzer so the wider the frequency range it can receive the better.

There are a bunch of projects based around the cheap rtl-sdr to do that. Of course radio receiver is only the first part of the problem you also need to thing about antennas etc. There are also related projects that use an rtlsdr to give an indication of how well different antennas work at different frequencies.

[Cromulent]

I want to build a spectrum analyzer so the wider the frequency range it can receive the better.

There are a bunch of projects based around the cheap rtl-sdr to do that. Of course radio receiver is only the first part of the problem you also need to thing about antennas etc. There are also related projects that use an rtlsdr to give an indication of how well different antennas work at different frequencies.

I just did some reading on software-defined radio because I don't know much about it and it seems there are also software defined antennas as well. Building a spectrum analyser could end up being a rather exciting project if I can figure out what hardware I need.

I found a device called the HackRF One which can go up to 6Ghz and is meant to be fully programmable and is also an open source hardware platform.

Thank you all for the help. I'll try and do some more reading on the subject and see where I can go from here.

[mfa298]

I just did some reading on software-defined radio because I don't know much about it and it seems there are also software defined antennas as well. Building a spectrum analyser could end up being a rather exciting project if I can figure out what hardware I need.

I found a device called the HackRF One which can go up to 6Ghz and is meant to be fully programmable and is also an open source hardware platform.

I'd suggest starting with the rtlsdr (about $10) then move onto one of the many other SDRs (I've got a HackRF and I think that was more like $150 and some of the others are even more).

If you want to learn more about radio and antennas it might be worth looking at Amateur Radio courses and possibly trying local Amateur Radio clubs (some can be good, others not so good).

[Cromulent]

I just did some reading on software-defined radio because I don't know much about it and it seems there are also software defined antennas as well. Building a spectrum analyser could end up being a rather exciting project if I can figure out what hardware I need.

I found a device called the HackRF One which can go up to 6Ghz and is meant to be fully programmable and is also an open source hardware platform.

I'd suggest starting with the rtlsdr (about $10) then move onto one of the many other SDRs (I've got a HackRF and I think that was more like $150 and some of the others are even more).

If you want to learn more about radio and antennas it might be worth looking at Amateur Radio courses and possibly trying local Amateur Radio clubs (some can be good, others not so good).

I'll look into the rtlsdr then. That sounds like a good starting point.

I'll have to buy a book or something about radio as it is a subject I don't know much about. It is certainly interesting though.

I'll have to brush up my maths as well so I can do FFT so maybe a maths book as well.

[Cromulent]

Sorry to keep posting here but I've been reading about the RTL-SDR dongle, and it looks good to start out. Especially as getting that and an antenna is pretty cheap, but one thing I'm confused about is how to access the dongle from my code in Linux. I couldn't find anything about interacting with the device directly.

I know I could use one of the pre-written pieces of software, but I wanted to develop my solution in C++ or Python so that I could learn how to use these devices from the ground up. I'm just not sure how they interact with the operating system at a driver level, so I'm not sure how to access the data that the device picks up.

I know these are very newbie questions so for that I apologise. I want to start out using Windows 10, but ultimately I want to run the device on the Raspberry Pi and write an application that runs on Raspbian.

[mfa298]

I'll look into the rtlsdr then. That sounds like a good starting point.

I'll have to buy a book or something about radio as it is a subject I don't know much about. It is certainly interesting though.

I'll have to brush up my maths as well so I can do FFT so maybe a maths book as well.

Whilst based around the hackrf there are some video tutorials on https://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/. Some stuff might need a slightly more powerful system than the Pi3/Pi3B+ particularly if trying to view FFTs

I know I could use one of the pre-written pieces of software, but I wanted to develop my solution in C++ or Python so that I could learn how to use these devices from the ground up. I'm just not sure how they interact with the operating system at a driver level, so I'm not sure how to access the data that the device picks up.

I know these are very newbie questions so for that I apologise. I want to start out using Windows 10, but ultimately I want to run the device on the Raspberry Pi and write an application that runs on Raspbian.

For writing your own code Linux is probably easier than trying to get things going on Windows.

I think you would need to interface with librtl for your own C++ code, as a starting point also look at GNURadio which lets you build stuff with a gui and based around python (the videos I linked above might show bits of GNU Radio)

[Cromulent]

I'll look into the rtlsdr then. That sounds like a good starting point.

I'll have to buy a book or something about radio as it is a subject I don't know much about. It is certainly interesting though.

I'll have to brush up my maths as well so I can do FFT so maybe a maths book as well.

Whilst based around the hackrf there are some video tutorials on https://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/. Some stuff might need a slightly more powerful system than the Pi3/Pi3B+ particularly if trying to view FFTs

I know I could use one of the pre-written pieces of software, but I wanted to develop my solution in C++ or Python so that I could learn how to use these devices from the ground up. I'm just not sure how they interact with the operating system at a driver level, so I'm not sure how to access the data that the device picks up.

I know these are very newbie questions so for that I apologise. I want to start out using Windows 10, but ultimately I want to run the device on the Raspberry Pi and write an application that runs on Raspbian.

For writing your own code Linux is probably easier than trying to get things going on Windows.

I think you would need to interface with librtl for your own C++ code, as a starting point also look at GNURadio which lets you build stuff with a gui and based around python (the videos I linked above might show bits of GNU Radio)

Thank you very much for your help. I've just watched the first video tutorial you linked to and now I'm getting a better idea about how all of this works. Much appreciated.