Profile: sdr¶
Software-defined radio — receivers, GNU Radio, and the driver layer
Stage: 1.0
Who it is for¶
Anyone with, or about to buy, a software-defined radio: a twenty-pound RTL-SDR dongle, an Airspy, a HackRF or a transceiver such as an ANAN. It is the receiver and driver layer the listening, satellite and security profiles stand on.
At a glance¶
| Stage | 1.0 |
| Units | 16 |
| Disk | about 1.5 GB, most of it GNU Radio |
| Hardware | An SDR and an antenna. Without one the programs install and open but have nothing to tune; the SoapySDR remote client can reach a radio on another machine. |
| Consent | none |
| Install | hammunition install sdr |
What it installs¶
Three general-purpose receivers with waterfalls, GNU Radio and the block that lets a flow graph talk to almost any radio, fosphor's GPU-drawn spectrum and waterfall blocks for it, the SoapySDR tools and the RTL-SDR driver stack, the client and server halves of network SDR sharing, an offline signal visualiser, an RDS decoder, two transceiver applications for hardware that transmits -- Quisk, and piHPSDR for OpenHPSDR radios such as the ANAN and the Hermes Lite 2 -- and a complete GPS receiver in software.
Disk footprint: Around 1.5 GB, most of it GNU Radio and its Python stack. Without GNU Radio the rest is roughly 300 MB. gr-fosphor (added 2026-09-30) also pulls gnuradio-dev, GNU Radio's development headers; what that adds has not been measured. pihpsdr (added 2026-10-01) is a source build whose GTK 3 development dependencies came to about 1.0 GB on a bare debian:13 image. Its first start spends minutes to an hour computing FFTW wisdom; see its package page.
Why these belong together¶
Everything here works with one cheap dongle, and the driver layer is what makes the applications interchangeable — software written against SoapySDR reaches your radio through a module, which is why installing the right one is usually the difference between an application listing your radio and showing an empty device list. The network pair is worth the two packages. Run the server where the antenna is and the client where you are sitting, and every SoapySDR program reaches the remote radio unchanged. Getting the antenna away from a modern house is the single biggest improvement available to most receivers.
Packages (16)¶
gqrx-sdr, sdrpp, cubicsdr, gnuradio, gr-osmosdr, gr-fosphor, soapysdr-tools, soapysdr-module-rtlsdr, rtl-sdr, soapyremote-server, soapysdr-module-remote, inspectrum, gr-rds, quisk, pihpsdr, gnss-sdr
What it deliberately excludes¶
Eleven of the twelve per-device SoapySDR modules. Airspy, bladeRF, LimeSDR, MiriSDR, PlutoSDR, Red Pitaya, RFSpace, USRP, OsmoSDR, audio and the FUNcube all have manifests and none is installed here, because a one-dongle user needs one module and installing twelve to be safe is exactly what D-020 exists to avoid. Install the one matching your hardware by name. The HydraSDR RFOne and the RigExpert Fobos SDR (hydrasdr-host and soapysdr-module-hydrasdr; libfobos, libfobos-sdr-agile and soapysdr-module-fobos) are the same case and a heavier one: on most targets they are source builds, so installing them for hardware you do not own would compile five projects for nothing. soapysdr-module-rtlsdr is the exception on frequency grounds rather than principle: an RTL-SDR is what most people have.
Also excludes transmit-capable research and interception tooling, which is rf-security and the consent-gated rf-research. The two transceiver programs here, quisk and pihpsdr, transmit the way a station transceiver does: when you key them, on the frequency shown, and a licence and the band plan apply. Installing them transmits nothing; the profile also excludes the DAB transmit chain, which emits into a broadcast band; and the aeronautical and utility decoders, which are listening.
Install it¶
Read the plan first. It changes nothing and prints every package, build, file and system change, and every consent gate you will meet:
Then do it. The engine asks for your sudo password once, near the start,
and shows the same plan again before it asks you to confirm:
A member your machine cannot take is deferred by name and the rest installs (D-039); the plan lists each under Will NOT happen, with the reason and the command that fixes it. Installation explains how to read every part of the plan.
What you configure by hand afterward¶
A dongle that works under sudo and not otherwise is a permissions problem. Device access needs a udev rule and usually the plugdev group; the hardware catalog carries the rules and hammunition hardware apply writes them and adds you to the groups (log out and back in afterward). SoapySDRUtil --find is the first command to run when a radio is invisible — it separates a USB or permissions problem from a missing module from an application bug.
Determine your dongle's frequency error once and keep the PPM correction; several decoders fail to lock rather than reporting an error when it is wrong. soapyremote-server has no authentication at all — anyone who can reach the port can use your radio and hear what it hears — so it belongs on a trusted network or behind a tunnel, deliberately. Quisk is configured in Python rather than through a dialog; the shipped examples are the starting point and this is the step that stops people. fosphor's blocks need an OpenCL driver for the graphics hardware, which nothing here installs; clinfo shows whether one is present, and the gr-fosphor package page says what the archives offer.
Your first ten minutes¶
- Read the plan:
hammunition install sdr --dry-run. GNU Radio is the large part. - Install:
hammunition install sdr. - Apply the udev rules so your dongle opens without root:
hammunition hardware apply --dry-run, thenhammunition hardware apply, then log out and back in. - Plug the dongle in and run
rtl_testfor an RTL-SDR orSoapySDRUtil --findfor anything else. Seeing the device here separates a USB or permissions problem from a missing module from a program bug. - If your radio is not an RTL-SDR, install its one SoapySDR module by name, for example
hammunition install soapysdr-module-airspy;hammunition list packagesshows the names. - Open
gqrx, tune broadcast FM and listen. SDR first steps takes you from there to aircraft, 433 MHz sensors and ships. - Work out your dongle's frequency error once and keep the PPM correction; several decoders fail to lock rather than reporting it.
Take it off again¶
This removes what Hammunition itself installed and nothing else. It does not remove dependencies apt pulled in, group memberships or configuration files it wrote; the plan says so and the transaction log records them (D-004).