#radio #electronics #notes #kiwisdr
I've had this shelved with a really nice antenna for years. It was not practical to setup where I used to live but it is now. As of 2024-09-07, I consider it done enough to use and enjoy.
I have a LOT of notes about the operation and care of this thing and I will be spending some time organizing them and splitting up this monolithic file for easier reading by others who might come across it.
**The Setup:**
[KiwiSDR](http://www.kiwisdr.com) v1 - [Operating Information Guide](http://kiwisdr.com/info/)
[W6LVP Receive Only Magloop](https://www.w6lvp.com)
[Mean Well, 5V 4A, 2.1mm plug, 85 - 264 VAC IEC C14 input connector](https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mean-well-usa-inc/GST25A05-P1J/7703645?s=N4IgTCBcDaIOIGUAqYCsBBADKgtABQEYApEAXQF8g)
[Turn Island Systems 30 MHz Low-pass filter](https://turnislandsystems.com/sdr-front-end-filter/)
[Samson PowerBrite PB9](https://samsontech.com/products/studio-tools/powerbrite/powerbrite/)
**Things I need to order:**
* [Toroid Chokes](https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/fair-rite-products-corp/5977002701/8594175?s=N4IgTCBcDaIGYEMCWAnAtCpAXApgAgFYBOAdhIAZywKBGEAXQF8g) - ~~Going to need like 20 or so I think, 30 or more might be a good number if I'm going to use them elsewhere, which is something I need to do.~~ Many ordered, still need more and some different types than what I ordered for the antenna line.
* ~~[AM Attenuator](https://www.amazon.com/Flamingo-AM-Broadcast-Bandstop-Applications/dp/B079CMB44V) or [This one](https://www.amazon.com/Flamingo-AM-Attenuation-Broadcast-Applications/dp/B0BHXFLB72/ref=pd_ci_mcx_pspc_dp_d_2_t_1?pd_rd_w=fg3ea&content-id=amzn1.sym.568f3b6b-5aad-4bfd-98ee-d827f03151e4&pf_rd_p=568f3b6b-5aad-4bfd-98ee-d827f03151e4&pf_rd_r=GTF6DHE60V39KDZ4VS7X&pd_rd_wg=MqBdq&pd_rd_r=de5dd6d8-9c12-416c-91c3-3c347209c011&pd_rd_i=B0BHXFLB72). This is a "maybe" according to docs, but I think I'm really going to need one here where I live.~~ The Turn Island Systems Filter is more than sufficient.
Notes on Connecting via a Wifi USB Dongle:
- https://forum.kiwisdr.com/discussion/1653/connecting-kiwi-via-wifi
- https://forum.kiwisdr.com/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/9270#Comment_9270
## Current Status
***2024-09-19***
The 15dBi directional WiFi antenna arrived a few days ago, which replaces the 7dBi omnidirectional antenna. Due to an appendectomy getting in the way, I just got it installed last night. The new antenna is only temporarily setup, as it didn't come with all the mounting hardware it needed to come with, but it's a fix. According to `wavemon` the signal is just 5-10% better but the drop outs are totally gone.
***2024-09-15***
It's going offline for the public. I did a really deep dive on some aspects of this and mine has to go offline. I don't want to get involved in an Internet flamewar, so I'm just taking mine offline and it will just be available to me and anyone on my tailnet.
I'm a little salty about it, especially after getting an internet user who's name was "Thank you so much <3" after listening for an hour and a half, but... it has to go on my private network only.
This may change if I become independently wealthy and can just work on a web SDR full time.
I'm still going to update things here about how I get it to work better, but it's going offline.
***2024-09-13***
I have been experiencing issues with network connectivity, or at least it seems like I have. Often the waterfall will stutter and audio will drop. The Wifi signal is usually hanging out ~ 50% quality so I’ve ordered a higher gain, directional, outdoor antenna for the thing. I’ve noticed in the system log that it tends to range a lot, so I’m hoping that at least that can be stopped.
I never wanted to be a guy that had `node_exporter` installed on machines in his house and my own Grafana/Prometheus setup, but I really don’t see many other ways to try and solve some of the issues I’m having. I mostly don’t want to do this because it’s what I do for a living and it is a bad thing to do the same thing for your hobby that you do for a living.
The new antenna should arrive tomorrow, if it’s remarkably better I’ll consider it a success, otherwise I feel like this is going to turn into a data center.
I am still having problems with noise and I feel like this may be related to my antenna choice. Yes, I need to get a better ferrite setup for the thing, but while the noise is still much better than it was, it’s still not great. I’m going to try and solve the networking problems first because it’s extremely frustrating to try and solve the RF problems when you can’t get the waterfall working or the thing has gone completely offline. I may look into an antenna switcher and maybe something like a long wire since I nearly have the space for it.
***2024-09-07***
Well hell. The documentation for the reverse proxy for the Kiwi does not exist and the UI’s explanation is completely lacking. Fine, I’d much rather have this under my control anyway. But I ran into a snag with my home Internet service.
I absolutely love having T-Mobile’s 5G home internet service. It’s got a great price point, outages have been non-existent (no wires!), it’s fast with low latency and it was cheaper and faster than cable here. I just ran across my first snag with the service through — there’s absolutely no settings on it. Meaning, I can’t turn on u-pnp or make a NAT for the SDR so I can access it remotely. There are[ reports of running Tailscale directly on the device](https://forum.kiwisdr.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3005/tailscale-install-on-kiwi), but there are reasons I don’t want to do that:
* The Beaglebone is already often running at high CPU utilization. The Kiwi server code has realtime requirements (per the comment from the guy that made it in the link above) and it could be a problem.
* I’d rather not screw around with dynamic DNS clients.
So I already have a Tailnet from [Tailscale]([https://tailscale.com](https://tailscale.com/)) on most of the devices I own and it would make it possible for me to put up a reverse proxy in the cloud, route it into the home network and straight to the KiwiSDR’s private address. This ended up being much easier than that. It was as simple as setting up a reverse proxy from a raspberry pi directly wired to the AP to proxy to the KiwiSDR and running `tailscale funnel 80` on the raspberry pi.
I'm now in the directory! Project completed.
![[Pasted image 20240907161609.png]]
Well, as much as I can be done with it. It's a very noisy day electrically and I feel like I'll constantly be adjusting things, but I'm done with all the hard stuff for now. In the next couple days I'll try and wrap up some final thoughts and fit this into something more akin to a blog post.
***2024-09-06 Very very early morning***
Ok! So I've powered up the noisy as heck wifi bridge but also plugged in the USB wifi adapter with a 8dB antenna attached. I'm going to try to get the adapter working from the comfort of inside the house then go power down everything attached to the ethernet, especially the bridge because it is VERY noisy in the environment even when it's not plugged into anything but power.
So first things first, let's see what's on the USB bus:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ lsusb
-bash: lsusb: command not found
```
Well that's no good, but expected. Let's install USB utils so we can take a look
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo apt install usbutils
```
After installing usbutils, we'll see what's on the USB bus and install the appropriate firmware.
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0cf3:9271 Qualcomm Atheros Communications AR9271 802.11n
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
debian@kiwisdr:~$ apt search atheros
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
firmware-atheros/unknown 20170823-1rcnee1~jessie+20180328 all
Binary firmware for Atheros wireless cards
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo apt install firmware-atheros
```
Ok, so let's install some tools for wireless networking.
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo apt install iw wireless-tools wpasupplicant wavemon
```
Now at this point I could go outside and unplug and re-plug the USB adapter, but it's hot and gross so I'll reboot and log back in. After that:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether e4:15:f6:f7:4d:a8 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether e8:de:27:09:0a:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: usb0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether e4:15:f6:f7:4d:a0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
```
Sweet! `wlan0` is alive, but down! Let's bring it up so we can look at the spectrum / networks:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo ip link set wlan0 up
```
Now we should be able to use `wavemon` to scan for networks. `wavemon` is an ncurses based way to more conveniently browse wireless networks. We'll run `sudo wavemon` and check things out.
![[Pasted image 20240906100506.png]]
Ok, so nothing yet, we'll have to hit `F3` and initiate a scan:
![[Pasted image 20240906100608.png]]
So this is where it's wild. Let's explore with a not-to-scale KD8ORQ home diagram:
![[Untitled-2024-09-06-1017.png]]
The `dankostan_EXT` extender was installed because the extender in the garage didn't get enough signal to connect to the modem in the front of the house. According to `wavemon`, the USB stick+antenna averages a 10dB better signal than the intermediary extender (dankostan_EXT) I was intending to use. So we'll setup the KiwiSDR to use the original AP in the front of the house and once the Wifi is working on the KiwiSDR, all the extenders can be removed[^1]!
I was about to edit `/etc/network/interfaces` to bring up the wireless interface, but according to a comment in it, I should be using `connman` to manage the network connection. So...
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:/etc/network$ sudo apt install connman
```
And the network drops. The device is no longer ping-able, etc. The screen stopped updating when connman was 80% of the way through being installed. So let's go power cycle the thing after a good wait to ensure the apt operation completed. I thought something might happen with both interfaces being live on the same network, but we haven't even set the thing up yet.
Everything was fine after the power cycle and connman was installed. Let's make sure it runs at startup:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo systemctl enable connman
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo systemctl start connman
```
Let's run it:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo connmanctl
```
We'll get a new prompt and run three commands:
```shell-session
connmanctl> enable wifi
connmanctl> scan wifi
connmanctl> services
```
To connect to our network, we'll use the results from the second column of the output of `services`:
```shell-session
connmanctl> connect wifi_e8de27090a55_64616e6b6f7374616e_managed_psk
```
I got an error:
```shell-session
connmanctl> connect wifi_e8de27090a55_64616e6b6f7374616e_managed_psk
Error /net/connman/service/wifi_e8de27090a55_64616e6b6f7374616e_managed_psk: Not registered
```
Turns out the link wasn't up after the reboot, let's try again:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo ip link set wlan0 up
```
Still broken. Googling says the agent wasn't running, so
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ sudo connmanctl
connmanctl> agent on
connmanctl> connect wifi_e8de27090a55_64616e6b6f7374616e_managed_psk
```
Boom! Asked for a passphrase and it worked:
```shell-session
debian@kiwisdr:~$ ip addr show wlan0
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,DYNAMIC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether e8:de:27:09:0a:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.12.170/24 brd 192.168.12.255 scope global wlan0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fd8b:cfb9:3269:6cc7:eade:27ff:fe09:a55/64 scope global mngtmpaddr dynamic
valid_lft 1698sec preferred_lft 1698sec
inet6 fd24:8142:392f:0:eade:27ff:fe09:a55/64 scope global mngtmpaddr dynamic
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 2607:fb91:16ad:4968:eade:27ff:fe09:a55/64 scope global mngtmpaddr dynamic
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe80::eade:27ff:fe09:a55/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
```
So let's go detach the ethernet, reboot and try this (not in that order, but yes).
![[Pasted image 20240906111045.png]]
AWWWW YEAH! I zoomed in and the carrier noise from before is gone. The part that is wild is that the noise floor is 1-2 dB off from where the KiwiSDR would be with no antenna attached!
After a little bit of browsing around the bands, this is a night and day change -- I am now successfully picking up signals I could not have imagined picking up before since I'm in the low noise garage. I love this!
Someday soon I'll have to consolidate all these notes so they make more sense to future readers, but I am finally happy with my KiwiSDR setup.
***2024-09-04 Evening (And updated later in the evening too)***
My waterfall was covered with these odd carriers that were REALLY causing problems across ham bands, and well, all bands. I managed to find one of the loudest ones at 23.128MHz and went out with my portable TECSUN PL-880 with the antenna extended to find the culprits. I had the same noise on the portable so I just waved the antenna around like crazy until I could narrow it down a bit more.
I started with everything that wasn’t connected to the radio. Unplugged the antenna inserter. Still awful noise. Unplugged the ethernet from the Wifi bridge and SILENCE. Played around with it a bit more, unplugged the SDR from the ethernet hub but had the Wifi bridge plugged into it the screaming comes back. Whenever the link state is up on the ethernet port of the TP-Link bridge there is just screaming all across the HF bands.
If I unplug the Wifi bridge and just plug the KiwiSDR’s ethernet into a small ethernet switch I have out there, I get similar noise. I can’t win. There are ferrite chokes all over the place, but I’m pretty sure we’re just looking at awful power supplies on the networking gear which those won’t fix. In this case, the USB wifi might not be a bad option.
So at least I have some sort of idea where the noise is coming from at this point. I’ve done some preliminary looking around and maybe found an cheapish low noise ethernet switch that I can at least test and return tomorrow.
In hindsight this should have been a no brainer, the Extender/Bridge doesn’t even have a ground. I’ve taken all these precautions to ensure I had good power on the antenna and KiwiSDR and no amount of RF chokes or other filtering would fix the cheap networking gear power circuits. I really don’t want this thing in my bedroom permanently so I will continue to try and find other solutions.
Direct Wifi on the SDR sounds the simplest and I do have some higher gain antennas and USB adapters that support using them, so that might be a tomorrow/weekend project. If that doesn’t work, I have a RaspberryPi with a linear power supply that might also do the job.
The good news was that the noise levels are SUPER low when this stuff isn’t attached. The antennas and KiwiSDR themselves are stellar signal wise in that location.
**_2024-09-04 Early Morning_**
I find it helpful to write down things to help narrow down problems and facilitate my decision processes. A whole lot has happened with this setup. There is a lot of trial and error and once I'm happier with it, I'll turn this into something more akin to a blog post.
Quick note: After a couple weeks of running, the fan has quieted down. I'm assuming there's some sort of burrs or something that wear down after a lot of spins.
In other news, there have been ups, there have been downs. Reception in the room I've had it in in the house has been OK, but less than what I expect. I've seen FT8 spots as far as Australia and Asiatic Russia, but it's not quite there yet. There have been some noise issues I still have to sort out. Inside there are noise sources that are somewhat tolerable. I figured between all the lights and electronics inside that this was going to be inevitable so I thought I'd move it to the detached garage where there is only a few bulbs and a garage door opener. Oh yeah, I also don't like having a giant loop antenna in my bedroom.
The problem with moving to the detached garage is that it is very detached from the house. The KiwiSDR requires a wired ethernet connection. This left me with a few options for getting wired ethernet into the garage:
- Find the conduit getting power to the garage and snake ethernet through it.
- Bury the ethernet from the house.
- Run an aerial ethernet line
- Powerline Networking
- Somehow get the Wifi into the garage and run a bridge to physical wiring.
Which led to a bit of a decision process:
* The previous residents have sealed over the conduit with remodeling and expanding foam. This could get really ugly really fast and it's worth it.
* Burying an ethernet drop is probably a better longer term option here but there is a problem with lots and lots of concrete out back, completely encircling the house on that side and the garage.
* An aerial is problematic as there's no good way to attach it to the garage safely due to some construction weirdness.
* Powerline networking was _very_ tempting, but the adapters run on HF radio frequencies and the potential for interference would be high. Anecdotes on the Internet confirm this, but the costs on a pair of adapters for these (~$35 USD) might bring this into the realm of _something I may try_ if I cannot solve other problems with the way I went.
* **This leaves me with the easiest option of getting the WiFi into the garage and bridging ethernet to the KiwiSDR**
This ended up being easier said than done. There is a single 15 amp circuit going to the garage and two available outlets so I'm going to be using some sort of surge protector to be able to fit all the wall warts and power supplies.
Even though the indoor access point is only 20 feet or so from the back wall, there was little signal -- even if I went out with a 8dB antenna attached to a external USB adapter. I was really hoping to just install a few debian packages, a USB Wifi adapter with the antenna and be able to call it a day, but of course that wasn't going to happen. Realistically even if the signal was not _great_ if I could get a megabit or two to the SDR it would be enough, but that didn't happen.
Instead I settled on a pair of Wifi repeaters with Ethernet bridging. They're marketed as a "mesh" product but they are anything but, they are repeaters as are the majority of the ones you can buy in a store. They aren't bad as they are configurable in fun ways, like the one in the garage does not act as a repeater and instead is just an ethernet bridge, but one in the house is a repeater to get the signal to the one in the garage.
With all that done, I hooked up the antennas (loop and GPS), powered up the inserter for the loop, connected to the extender ethernet, and made sure all the connections were tight and the toroids were wound -- but the noise was unbearable. I threw in a small ethernet switch between the wall adapter and the KiwiSDR but it was no help.
Next steps are to isolate noise sources that have to do with the setup. Isolating sources of noise _in_ the garage was pretty easy since I can just unplug everything that isn't part of the KiwiSDR setup.
Likely culprits (not in order):
- The cheap Wifi bridge. I will attempt to disable the one in the garage and either run a very long temporary ethernet cable from the house to the SDR in it's location or leave one of the indoor bridges on and configure an external USB Wifi adapter.
- It's just too damn noisy and the RF I'm picking up is the actual state of the air in my part of Upper Arlington.
- Grounding in general. The whole setup is this mess of tiny wires and things that plug into a box and there's no easy way to really have a common ground.
- ~~Better filters on mains. There's a number of reasons this could be gross out there. _Oh wow, I forgot I actually own a Furman Power Conditioner_ and thought of this as I typed it. Ironically, it's in an SKB rack that's in the garage. I will more than likely just do this right away as it's easy enough to do.~~ Did this. No effect.
- The noise is also inside, so I'll see if it's still present with the antenna disconnected or with my unpowered loop.
***2024-08-24***
It’s alive… and noisy. I’m already picking up WSPR reports and am reporting into [pskreporter](https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html?preset&callsign=KD8ORQ&mapCenter=35.42167819271155,-83.37994186583147,3.9325572880613575). with some pretty good spots.
I do not have everything permanently mounted yet, but the magloop is in the KiwiSDR and it’s alive. I opted for a metal case for the SDR and it came with a VERY noisy fan which is going to necessitate it being removed from my room where it currently resides. I’m not talking RF noise, the fan is **loud**.
There’s some RF noise problems but it’s not bad at all.
The KiwiSDR v1 is a Beaglebone Black based linux box and it has interesting security to say the least as it’s really meant to be a plug and play radio more than anything else. Once I’m more comfortable with how that works I will be probably making use of the proxy service so everyone can use it.
Did I mention this thing is noisy?
**_2024-08-23_**
I had an itch to get _something_ working until I could get the KiwiSDR setup so in the meantime I put together:
* [YouLoop Portable Passive Loop](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/youloop-portable-passive-loop-antenna-now-available-in-our-store/)
* [RTL-SDR Blog SDR](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-dvb-t-dongles/)
* [NoElec Ham It Up v1.3 HF UpConverter](https://www.nooelec.com/store/ham-it-up.html)
* [RTL-SDR Broadcast AM Block High Pass Filter](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-com-broadcast-block-high-pass-filter-now-sale/)
* RaspberryPi 4 8Gb (overkill, had it around) running [OpenWebRx](https://www.openwebrx.de)
It really wasn't very good for picking up anything but one or two very strong signals. Eventually due to matters of cable management I took the upconverter out of the system and put the SDR dongle into direct sampling mode. This has the side effect of disabling gain circuitry but I could honestly not tell a difference with the YouLoop attached.
I'd been waiting for a replacement power supply to arrive for my [W6LVP Receive Only Magloop](https://www.w6lvp.com)and it arrived today. As soon as I plugged the power supply into the power inserter the LED finally came on and I plugged into into the SDR instead of the YouLoop and...
![[Pasted image 20240823145412.png]]
I am totally listening to crazy people on CB radio right now very loud and clearly. The magloop is sitting on top of my laundry hamper inside right now and I'm sure it will only get better when I find more permanent home for it. I don't mean for this to be a comparison between a $35 passive antenna and a significantly more expensive hand made active magloop, but I was just very excited to pull in some signals finally.
The RTL-SDR radio can only really capture 2 MHz or so of spectrum at a time and it's not very detailed on the waterfall so I'm really looking forward to getting the KiwiSDR online at some point this evening, although it's not assembled at all yet and that might take some time.
As you can see on the waterfall above it's very noisy, but even with a ton of RF chokes on every cable, the Pi and RTL-SDR are pretty noisy. The power supply that I have for the KiwiSDR should help with some of these issues.
In the meantime, thrilled to be getting some signals!
[^1]: I will be removing them from this setup, but repurposing them for another project.