SDR devices, Fake, Clone or Genuine? Part 1

  Fake, Clone or Genuine? That seems to be the question people ask when looking at SDR devices on online market places.

So the question is what does each of these terms terms mean?

Fake: an item passing itself off as another by using its name etc when in fact it is a completely different device.

Clone: an item that is exactly the same as another in all respects. 

Genuine: An item produced and developed by the originator.

How does this apply in the SDR world?

Well lets take a popular device The SDRPlay RSP1.

The above image shows a Genuine RSP1.

This next image shows a device that uses the same Mirics chipset as the RSP1 

Now nowhere on this device is any mention of SDRPlay or RSP1, so what is it, is it a Fake?

Well no it isn't a Fake because it isn't pretending to be something it isn't. 

Is it a Clone? Well no because quite evidently the device isn't identical to the RSP1.

So is it Genuine? Yes it is a genuine five port SDR device. No it isn't a RSP1, but it doesn't imply it is either.  In fact these new devices are superior to the RSP1, containing many improvements over the original.

A lot of people say these devices steal the intellectual property of SDRPlay because many people use SDRPlay's software to run them, but you don't have to. There are free open source alternatives available. 

Running SDRPlay devices on openwebrx on x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64 machines

First you need to install Ubuntu 21.10 Hirsute Hippo, download from here Ubuntu 21.10 Hirsute Hippo Once you have Ubuntu up and running we can get it ready for adding SDRPlay support and installing openwebrx.

Install cmake from software.

Open a terminal and run  sudo apt-get install build-essential

Then run sudo apt install git 

close terminal

Download and install the SDRplay API from here: SDRPlay 3.07.1

Open a terminal and install these packages.

sudo apt-get install libsoapysdr0.7

sudo apt-get install libsoapysdr-dev

sudo apt-get install soapysdr-tools

Build and install the SoapySDRPlay module following the instructions here: SoapySDRPlay3

Open file explorer and navigate to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf 

Open a terminal and run sudo gedit this will open text editor as root. 

Drag and drop the blacklist.conf  file into the text editor and add these lines at the bottom and click save, 

blacklist sdr_msi3101

blacklist msi001

blacklist msi2500

Plug your SDRPlay device in and make sure the SoapySDRPlay installation is working by following the instructions here: SoapySDRUtil

Download and install the OpenWebRX package for Ubuntu following the instructions from here: install openwebrx

Run commands in terminal as root 'sudo -i'

Open your browser at localhost:8073  and cllick on settings and set your device up.

Useful commands:

Stop/Start/Restart openwebrx server,

sudo systemctl restart openwebrx

sudo systemctl stop openwebrx

Stop/Start SDRPlay API,

sudo systemctl start sdrplay

sudo systemctl stop sdrplay

Sample settings for SDRPlay RSP1A in screenshots.

 

 

To install Any Desk on Hirsute Hippo run sudo apt install libpangox-1.0-0 go to /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and find and uncomment WaylandEnable=false