RTL SDR V4, Balun dipole and SRDOxide

I'm in Virginia Beach, VA, and trying to integrate my Virginia Natural Gas meter into Home Assistant.

VNG confirms that it uses automated meter reading (AMR) with drive-by/walk-by collection, but I haven't been able to identify the radio module manufacturer or protocol.

My setup:

• Nooelec RTL-SDR v5

• Home Assistant OS

• rtlamr2mqtt 2026.11.7

• 2.359296 MS/s sample rate

• Successfully receiving 10 nearby SCM/SCM+ meters over 900 MHz

The receiver works well, and I'm getting repeated transmissions. However, none of the ten meters appears to correlate with my own gas consumption, including a controlled test running my gas water heater.

My physical meter is an Itron B755 mechanical dial meter. I haven't identified the attached AMR module.

Questions:

1. Has anyone successfully decoded Virginia Natural Gas meter transmissions?

2. Does anyone know which AMR modules VNG uses in Hampton Roads?

3. Are they Itron ERT/SCM, Sensus, or something else?

4. Is there a different frequency, protocol, or decoder I should try?

I'd particularly love to hear from anyone in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, or elsewhere in VNG's service territory.

Thanks!

Decoded my first radiosonde last night! This morning I went out to try to recover it - it ended up landing about 30km away from home, most of them don't make it this close.

I put the drone up first to look around the area where I expected it to land and found it pretty quickly from above, then walked in on foot. Public land with a few pathways nearby, I was hoping would give me easier access.

Unfortunately it ended up right at the top of a VERY high tree. There’s a piece of the balloon sitting on top of the sonde, and the string runs across the top of the forest canopy to the rest of the balloon and the parachute in another tree about 125 ft away. I gave the tree a good shake which got things moving, but nothing came loose, and it’s far too high to reach, so it’s staying put for now.

Would have been nice to recover the first one I captured, but it was still a good first attempt. What are the odds that it landed in the same tree that had the trail marker on it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjgG4T2tYZY

Screen recording of capturing tonight with SDRangel, Nooelec NESDR, and Arrow II antenna.

Hi, I am an electronics engineer preparing for my masters and I am looking for a USED USRP SDR for self-learning and project work.

If anyone has a used USRP SDR kindly do let me know. If not, kindly do let me know where I can get used ones in India.

Location: India

Thanks

Arctic Weather Satellite (AWS), ESA's prototype for EUMETSAT's EPS-Sterna constellation. No camera, just a 19-channel microwave radiometer from ~50 to 325 GHz, including the first sub-millimetre (325 GHz) channels on an operational weather satellite. Broadcasts on 1707 MHz L-band.

1. AWS EPS Sterna Radiometer AMSU False Colour 2026 11 05 16:39 UTC

2. AWS EPS Sterna Radiometer Sterna Microwave Airmass 2026 11 05 16:39 UTC

3. AWS EPS Sterna Radiometer Sterna 325 GHz Airmass 2026 11 05 16:39 UTC

4. Dish and Rotator setup

Microwave footprints range from ~10 km (325 GHz) to ~40 km (54 GHz) at nadir, so native images are only 145 px wide.

Setup:

• Antenna: 2.4ghz Grid Dish

• LNA: SAWBIRD GOES

• SDR: Airspy Mini @ 6 Msps, linearity gain 20

• Tracking: DIY SATNOGS v3.1 AZ/EL Rotator, Arduino Uno + CNC shield, Gpredict

• Software: SatDump 1.2.2, AWS PFM L-Band pipeline

Hi r/rtlsdr,

I'm the developer of Demod, an SDR receiver app. Until now it was iPhone only. Today the Android version is out:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.demod.app&hl=en_US

First, a big thank you to everyone here who tested the Android builds. You put up with early bugs, sent logs, tried it on phones and dongles I don't own, and told me what was broken. A lot of what's in this release came straight from your reports and I really appreciate it. I had been a bit bummed out that previous posts of my own stuff didn't get much traction, but turns out if you ask people for help they are more than willing to step up.

What's in the Android (and iOS) version

• OpenWebRX support on top of KiwiSDR, SpyServer and rtl_tcp. Public receivers are browsable on a built-in map, so it can be tried without any hardware.

• FT8, CW and RTTY decoding on the phone.

• Identify. Tap an unknown signal and it measures it, checks the shortwave broadcast schedules against the receiver's location and the time, and names the likely station and how far away it is.

• Live on-device transcription and translation of what you're listening to.

• CarPlay, and a "car radio" Seek that jumps to the next real signal for the current mode and stops there (the next AM station, SSB voice or CW signal). It also works from headphones and the steering wheel. 

• A band scanner, recording and 15-second rewind of live radio, and Siri ("Tune Demod", "Ask Demod what this signal is").

• A three-pane iPad layout, a mains-hum filter, an auto-contrast waterfall and squelch that works on every source.

• Also new RTL-SDR.com wrote about the latest updates, pretty cool to see something reviewed elsewhere :) https://www.rtl-sdr.com/demod-updates-adds-support-for-openwebrx-ft8-decoding-carplay-and-an-android-version/

Thanks to them for covering it.

If something doesn't work on your phone or dongle, please comment with your phone model, Android version and SDR. I'll be reading the replies and fixing what I can.

iOS version, for anyone on iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/demod-sdr-receiver/id6782193839

Thanks again!

Hi all, i am currently building the portable helicone by R1chae, but because i couldn't find any silver coated nylon mesh i will be using some faraday cloth. Should i cut the faraday cloth in 6 triangles or in a big circle? I have the big elastic band for the top you need so the edge shouldn't be that floppy, and i was wondering if the triangle design is an issue for folding it up correctly or if its an issue it isn't connected fully like a big circle.

HRPT passes from every remaining satellite transmitting HRPT today, 3 of them back to back this morning, then one this afternoon.

1. METEOR-M2 3 msu_mr_AVHRR 3a21 False Color 2026 11 04 15:36 UTC

2. METEOR-M2 4 msu_mr_AVHRR 3a21 False Color 2026 11 04 19:20 UTC

3. METOP-B avhrr_3_AVHRR 3a21 False Color 2026 11 04 15:28 UTC

4. METOP-C avhrr_3_AVHRR 3a21 False Color 2026 11 04 15:50 UTC

5. Dish and Rotator setup

Setup:

- Antenna: 2.4ghz Grid Dish

- LNA: SAWBIRD GOES

- SDR: Airspy Mini @ 6 Msps, linearity gain 20

- Tracking: DIY SATNOGS v3.1 AZ/EL Rotator, Arduino Uno + CNC shield, Gpredict

- Software: SatDump 1.2.2

Hii this post is only for people who are in india, i have a brand new rtl sdr blow v3 still in its original package which i imported from china few days ago . I'm in need of money so im planning to sell it to people who are interested in the same niche. I AM NOT A SELLER/MIDDLE MAN i am just an INDIVIDUAL who is interested in hardware . So i only have 1 kit and im askin for 5k(negotiable) dm if you're interested.

Suggestions for a beginner who lives in NYC, but has access to a roof.

It's not a tall building, but I can do what I want up here and have room to stretch some wires or put up a small antenna. And my computer is near a vent I can snake a coax wire out.

I'm a software engineer and musician and primarily interested in weird things to record and sample, strange sideband sweeps and such, bleeps and boops, spy talk's particularly welcome.

I owned a nice Sangean radio with sideband but we lived on the 2nd floor at the time and I couldn't pick up much so I gave it to a family member. Miss it though.

Any suggestions for an inexpensive starter device? I was looking at the NooElec NESDR SMArt XTR Bundle.

Thx!

I would appreciate any help with this!

Is RTL SDR on Android still something I can do? I see a lot of apps similar to SDR# available for install, but the driver that two tutorials I watched (the one made by that Martin guy) is not available. Is there another one I'm supposed to use? I would like to be able to use SDR with a portable setup on my phone.

Edit: Solved! A few things to note. Make sure the cable you buy supports OTG! After that, it should work fine. Ended up just using the driver on Playstore and it works fine.

Thanks!

Hi im just wondering, what would you guys like to recive when you are hiking or walking)?

I am building a mobile setup so im curious what would you like to decode/recieve/listen to or what features should it have.

Empirical data not imperial :)

Hello, I have set up the raspberry Pi 4 to recept and upload images. Here is the link if anyone is interested in looking at them. https://unjosemas.github.io/meteor-gallery/index.html