ShinySDR

This is the software component of a software-defined radio receiver. When combined with hardware devices such as the USRP, RTL-SDR, or HackRF, it can be used to listen to a wide variety of radio transmissions, and can be extended via plugins to support even more modes.

What's shiny about it?

I (Kevin Reid) created ShinySDR out of dissatisfaction with the user interface of other SDR applications that were available to me. The overall goal is to make, not necessarily the most capable or efficient SDR application, but rather one which is, shall we say, not clunky.

For example, the earliest technical feature of note is its persistent waterfall display: You can zoom, pan, and retune without losing any of the displayed history, whereas many other programs will discard anything which is temporarily offscreen, or the whole thing if the window is resized. This isn't especially hard to implement, but it's a far better user interface; your action is reversible. If you zoom in to get a look at one signal, you can zoom out again.

Some other notable features:

Browser-based UI: The receiver can be listened to and remotely controlled over a network or the Internet, as well as from the same machine the actual hardware is connected to. (Required network bandwidth: 3 Mb/s to 8 Mb/s, depending on settings.)
Modularity: plugin system allows adding support for new modes (types of modulation) and hardware devices.
“Hackability”: All server code is Python, and has no mandatory build or install step. Demodulators prototyped in GNU Radio Companion can be turned into plugins with very little additional code. Control UI can be automatically generated or customized and is based on a generic networking layer.
Frequency database: Jump to favorite stations; catalog signals you hear; import published tables of band, channel, and station info; take notes. (Note: Saving changes to disk is not yet well-tested.)

On the other hand, you may find that the shiny thing is lacking substance: if you're looking for functional features, we do not have the most modes, the best filters, or the lowest CPU usage. There's probably lots of code that will make a real DSP expert cringe.

Requirements and Installation

Install the following software on the machine which has your SDR hardware attached and will run the ShinySDR server:

Python 2.7 or later compatible version.
Twisted 12.3.0 or later. (If you use setup.py, this will be automatic.)
txWS 0.8 or later. (Ditto.)
GNU Radio 3.7.1 or later.
gr-osmosdr, and any applicable hardware drivers such as librtlsdr. (Plugins may be written to use other RF sources, but the only built-in support is for gr-osmosdr.)

The following may be installed to enable support for additional modes:

gr-air-modes (for aircraft transponders).
multimon-ng (for APRS).

Then either run the script fetch-js-deps.sh, or copy or symlink the following items into the shinysdr/deps/ directory:

jasmine/ (Jasmine 1.3.1 or later)
openlayers/ (OpenLayers 2.13.1 or later)
require.js (RequireJS 2.1.8 or later)

[TODO: Integrate fetch-js-deps or equivalent effects into setup.py.]

After the above dependencies have been installed, you may use the Python setup.py to install ShinySDR, or simply run it from this directory — installation is entirely optional.

The only web browser currently supported is Google Chrome (excluding Chrome for iPhone or iPad). While it is not intended to be Chrome-only, no attempt has been made to avoid using facilities which are not yet implemented in other browsers. Safari (Mac, 7.0.4) is known to work functionally but with broken flexbox UI layout, and Firefox (29) doesn't work at all (WebSocket fails to connect).

Currently, the client must have the same endianness and floating-point format as the server. This may be fixed in the future (if I ever hear of this actually being a problem, or if the data in question is switched to fixed-point to reduce data rate).

Setup

The server uses a configuration file, which is Python code. Run this command to create an example file:

python -m shinysdr.main --create filename

(If you have installed ShinySDR via setup.py then you can, and may need to, write shinysdr instead of python -m shinysdr.main. The former command will use the libraries downloaded by setup.py; the latter requires that they are installed systemwide.)

Edit it to specify your available hardware and other desired configuration (such as a HTTPS server certificate and the location of the state persistence file); instructions are provided in the comments in the example file.

Running the server

Once you have prepared a configuration file, you can run the server using

python -m shinysdr.main filename

and access it using your browser at the displayed URL. (The --go option will attempt to open it in your default browser, but this is unlikely to be helpful if said browser is not Chrome.)

(If you have installed ShinySDR via setup.py then you can write shinysdr instead of python -m shinysdr.main.)

Usage

For information on using and programming ShinySDR, see the manual, which can be accessed at /manual/ on the running server (there is a link in the UI).

A very brief summary of basic operation:

Make sure the “Run” checkbox is checked.
Adjust the “Center frequency” to tune your RF hardware to the band you want to observe.

You can zoom in on the spectrum by using either a scroll-wheel or two-finger touch (whichever you have; there is unfortunately not yet support for zooming without either function).
Click on a signal of interest. This will create a receiver, which will be marked on the spectrum as well as displaying controls. Use the controls to select the appropriate mode (type of demodulation).

Multiple signals can be received at once by shift-clicking in the spectrum view. To stop, click the X button by the receiver.

Copyright and License

ShinySDR is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

ShinySDR is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with ShinySDR. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.