Nils Schiffhauer – DK8OK

Action: Free software allows for decoding twelve INMARSAT in parallel

A recent post in Carl’s rtl-sdr-blog informed about the ebay-lability of some surplus Outernet patch antennas for just – see here. For just 29 US-$, I got this small antenna with integrated SAW filter (1525 – 1559 MHz) plus LNA. A real bait for me to jump over the limit of 30 MHz reception! Soon I fired up my AirSpy R2 receiver, providing the LNA with power supply (Bias-Tee). It worked fine, and I received a whole bunch of excellent signals by this setup.

As I wanted to receive some aircraft information, so I downloaded free JAERO decoder of Jonathan “Jonti” Olds, also from New Zealand. This fine software can be opened in many instances. In combination with the up to 24 decoders of SDR-Console V3 of Simon Brown, this modest setup turned into a multi-channel satellite reception post.

Here 12 decoders had been assigned – one on each INMARSAT channel. You see also quite good SNRs from the Outernet patch antenna.

Next steps worked as usual with the mutli-channel approach:

• make up 12 channels in SDR-Console and tune each channel to a different signal. Mode must be USB, and as bandwidth I choose 1200 Hz for 600 bps and 2400 Hz for 1200 bps channels. That’s a bit wider than necessary, but doing so there is some room for the AFC in JAERO decoder always to stick to the signal even if the SDR should drift a bit over 24 h or so
• The output of each channel is then routed to a different Virtual Audio Cable, or VAC 1-12.
• Then you have to install twelve instances of JAERO software in different folders, e.g. JAERO 1-12. You should name each JAERO.exe file accordingly, e.g. JAERO_1.exe to JAERO12.exe.
• Open JAERO_1.exe, assign its input to VAC 1, and set the matching speed of the signal. If all is ok, you will be rewarded by a sharp phase constellation, and soon decoding will start.
• Repeat the above steps until you have reached JAERO_12.exe, connected to VAC 12.

The “Matrix” of SDR-Console V3 shows the twelve channels with different signal strengths and width, depending on the data rate (600bps/narrow, 1200bps/wide).

The result can bee seen from the screenshot at the top of this page. The whole setup ran stable and unattended for hours.

Thanks for all smart people having developed the smart software and hardware!