OpenWebRX+

I’ve been running OpenwebRX+ for quite a long time now. Recently, a friend in Michigan asked me what I would use to provide a Ham who is out of reach of a repeater with the ability to listen to their weekly net. OpenWebRX immediately came to mind. I had last installed it back in 2023 under Raspbian (Debian) Linux on a Raspberry Pi 4 computer with an RTL v4 dongle to monitor local FM and Digital repeaters, as well as APRS. On HF it’s really nice to be able to decode SSTV, CW, FT4, FT8, D-STAR, RTTY, etc. as well as listen to SSB.

Using the awesome Image File Utilities I was able to create a clone of my entire system that could be sent over the Internet and copied to an SD Card. Using a new Raspberry Pi computer and RTL-SDR dongle, my friend was up and running after Amazon delivered a Rasbperry Pi and RTL-SDR v4 dongle.

If you’re new to OpenwebRX+, the best place to start is: https://fms.komkon.org/OWRX/

I wanted to refresh my memory on how to install OpenWebRX for my SDRs. I have an Airspy HF+ Discovery, an SDRPlay RSPdx, and some RTL-SDR v3 and v4 dongles. I use the RTL dongles mostly for VHF & UHF and the Airspy and SDRPlay for HF. However, while playing around recently I found that the RTL V4 dongle works amazingly well on HF!

You can download a pre-built image and copy it to an SD Card. I tested this method and it worked well.

If you’d rather install the operating system and then install the necessary packages to run OpenWebRX, you can do that too.

Installing OpenWebRX for Airspy

To install OpenWebRX+ on Debian GNU/Bookworm for use with an Airspy HF+ SDR, here’s a script you can use:

#!/bin/bash echo `date` installing prerequisites… sudo apt-get -y install git libusb-1.0-0-dev cmake make gcc g++ sudo apt-get -y install pkg-config libsoapysdr-dev soapysdr-tools rsyslog echo `date` Installing libairspyhf … git clone https://github.com/airspy/airspyhf.git cd airspyhf mkdir build cd build cmake -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON .. make sudo make install cd ../.. sudo ldconfig echo `date` Installing SoapyAirspyHF git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyAirspyHF.git cd SoapyAirspyHF mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install cd ../.. echo `date` Installing Openwebrx curl -s https://luarvique.github.io/ppa/openwebrx-plus.gpg | sudo gpg –yes –dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/openwebrx-plus.gpg sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openwebrx-plus.list <<<“deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/openwebrx-plus.gpg] https://luarvique.github.io/ppa/bookworm ./” sudo apt -y update sudo apt -y install openwebrx

If you want to add support for the SDRPlay SDRs, do these additional steps:

sudo apt -y install soapysdr-module-sdrplay3 Download the following installer from the sdrplay web site and run it: ./SDRplay_RSP_API-Linux-3.15.2.run

CodecServer

Codecserver is installed by default. It provides support for decoding digital modes such as DSTAR and DMR. You must have a compatible AMBE hardware device (DV Mega DVStick30, Internet Labs DV3K dongle, etc.) installed to use it.

Edit the /etc/codecserver/codecserver.conf file to enable codec support:

# unix domain socket server for local use [server:unixdomainsockets] #socket=/tmp/codecserver.sock # tcp server for use over network [server:tcp] #port=1073 #bind=:: # # usermod -a -G plugdev codecserver # [device:dv3k] driver=ambe3k tty=/dev/ttyUSB0 # Use 460800 for the DV Mega DVStick30 # baudrate=460800 # Use 230400 baud for the Internet Labs DV3K dongle baudrate=230400

Run the following command to provide the codecserver with the proper permissions to access the USB connected DV3K dongle:
usermod -a -G plugdev codecserver

Installing OpenWebRX for RTL-SDR v4

#!/bin/bash echo `date` installing prerequisites… sudo apt update sudo apt -y install libusb-1.0-0-dev git cmake build-essential pkg-config sudo apt -y install debhelper rsyslog echo `date` installing RTL SDR V4 driver git clone https://github.com/rtlsdrblog/rtl-sdr-blog cd rtl-sdr-blog sudo dpkg-buildpackage -b –no-sign cd .. sudo dpkg -i librtlsdr0_*.deb sudo dpkg -i librtlsdr-dev_*.deb sudo dpkg -i rtl-sdr_*.deb echo `date` Installing Openwebrx curl -s https://luarvique.github.io/ppa/openwebrx-plus.gpg | sudo gpg –yes –dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/openwebrx-plus.gpg sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openwebrx-plus.list <<<“deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/openwebrx-plus.gpg] https://luarvique.github.io/ppa/bookworm ./” sudo apt -y update sudo apt -y install openwebrx usermod -a -G plugdev codecserver

It’s very useful to have a system log so that you can see what’s going on with OpenWebRX and other services on the system. To enable logging, make sure you install rsyslog:

apt -y install rsyslog

Now you can watch what’s going on using tail (or more, etc.):

tail -f /var/log/syslog

Once you’ve got OpenWebRX+ installed, navigate to the server you just installed on port 8073

For example: Navigate to http://192.168.10.150:8073

Background Decoding

Background decoding is a nice feature of OpenWebRX+. It allows you to monitor a given radio band and decode digital signals. For example, you can have the system listen to the VHF band and decode APRS when it’s idle. To do this, add a scheduler to in the settings page for your device. Select the band you want it to apply to.

Enable Background Decoding for the modes you want to decode, e.g. Packet, SSTV, etc.

Then when you navigate to the Map, you can see the APRS activity in your area:

vy 73,

Brian
NJ6N