Sensorgnome V2 status & releases

Stations Receivers
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Sensorgnome V2.0-rc15 release (2024-157)

A fresh Sensorgnome V2 software version is available! This is release candidate 15 chasing the mythical 2.0 release :laughing:. This release has significant improvements over previous versions for stations with 3 or more FUNcubes in terms of monitoring their sample rate and restarting them if there is an issue. On the RTL-SDR side this release brings improvements as well, in particular to increase sensitivity, to support the rtl-sdr.com V4 version, and to fix issues with E4000-based versions (NESDR XTR). It also has usability improvements for showing the signal strength of Lotek detections. The complete list of changes:

FUNcube reliability:

RTL-SDR support:

  • support RTLSDR.com (ā€œblogā€) V4 dongle
  • changed pulse detection for rtlsdr to 6dB to match FCD (this may increase noise pulses, TBD)
  • support turning on bias-tee in acquisition.json for RTL-SDR (was already supported for FCD)
  • for RTL-SDR E4000 tuner pick the next higher tuner_gain if an invalid value is set in acquisition.json (it was using a low default gain)
  • add IF (intermediate frequency) gains for RTL-SDR E4000 tuner to acquisition.json (this improves the tunerā€™s sensitivity)
  • added experimental AGC for rtlsdr, disabled by default, display current gain

Other:

  • fix for Pi3 for Adafruit/MTK GPS
  • make timeseries on radio page more robust to time jumps
  • display SNR for Lotek pulses and tags (text pane and new chart)
  • add toggle to hide pulses from tags&pulses panel
  • upgrade to RaspberryOS 2024-03-12 base image
  • display cell IMEI
  • add serial output feed capability

If you have a test station or readily accessible station in your back yard I would very much appreciate if you could install this RC or upgrade to it and keep an eye out for things that donā€™t work. Thank you!

Please download from https://www.sensorgnome.net/download and see installation pointers in the first post of this thread.