https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/Join the Raspberry Pi Community, learn about the Pi 5 and the family of the single board computeren-USTelligent Community 12https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56837/trying-the-pi-pico-rx-sdr-project/234932Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:19:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:1419a44d-960c-43e8-94f4-c1a8815dd2d1scottiebabeHere is a spot test of the image rejection performance at 1.4 MHz First I apply an AM RF signal 6 kHz above the LO Signal Generator: The recorded I,Q samples from the o-scope The magnitude of the complex signal I + jQ The FFT of the I,Q samples There is a DC offset in the I,Q samples so some power will be seen at 0 Hz. An image of the + 6 kHz signal exists but is attenuated by approximately 30 dB. On a linear scale the image is less noticeable Adding a unmodulated carrier 8 kHz below the QSD’s LO The measured I,Q samples In the frequency domain the -8kHz tone (noisy, relaxation oscillator, not crystal controlled) has an image at +8 kHz, but attenuated by 30 dBhttps://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56837/trying-the-pi-pico-rx-sdr-project/234914Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:27:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:d0d3b74c-cfb2-480e-8566-cdca34a57d56DABVery nice build.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56837/trying-the-pi-pico-rx-sdr-projectThu, 09 Apr 2026 14:17:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:9600e63b-0ad8-47ea-9fd9-c120735cd9bfscottiebabeThe element14 community (shabaz) pointed me to a very neat SDR project using a RPI Pico. I have a RPI Pico and lots of generic and jellybean electronic components. So, I will have a go at building a copy of the open source project. All of the projects schematics and documentation are available here: https://101-things.readthedocs.io/en/latest/radio_receiver.html I don’t have all the exact components used in the project. I made the following substitutions with similar components I had on hand The frontend low rdson analog multiplexer was replaced with a 74HC066 quad analog switch (plus a one hot decoder). I also lowered the gain of the op-amp difference amplifiers. On power up, the picorx software defaults to an LO frequency of 1.4085 MHz. I used my signal generator to apply a 150 mVpp carrier with a frequency that sweeps from 10 kHz below the pico’s LO to 10 kHz above the pico’s LO. I get wonderful sinewaves on the output I/Q channels: The quadrature detector has significantly more bandwidth than I expected. You will notice that for frequencies above the local oscillator the Q signal leads the I signal (and vice versa for frequencies below the LO). The QSD’s response within 1 kHz of the LO is being partially rejected by the AC-coupled difference amplifiers. The amplitude response of the I/Q channels is not very well matched (I will have to think about that for a bit) More to experiment with, but impressive results for the simplicity of the project.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234814Sat, 04 Apr 2026 19:28:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:8a38441b-3171-4bb8-b674-39ef9fb6bc82DABVery cool project.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234813Sat, 04 Apr 2026 18:24:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:05be1f23-c587-4ec4-b498-e714564db7c9scottiebabeThank you so much for the project link! I believe the author has shared some more details on their personal site https://101-things.readthedocs.io/en/latest/radio_receiver.html I will definitely have to try it out once I find some low rdson quad switches I wanted to avoid the complexities of IQ sampling so its easier to tune in VHF. There may be tuner ic's with IQ outputs. I am trying to just start simple.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234811Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:19:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:e0bc7a0b-fb61-46a6-9509-2763af7b802ascottiebabeTuning to 462 MHz I tuned my LO such that my FRS radio was down converted to a low IF I have a T5725 from years ago. Pressing the paging/call tone button community.element14.com/.../frspaging.mp3 Unfortunately the local weather radio station officially went off the air April 1, otherwise I would tune to that.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234809Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:25:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:06895915-f6c7-4f4a-8dbc-3256fe95a054dang74Thanks shabaz I was pretty sure that was the case... just needed assurance.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234808Sat, 04 Apr 2026 11:41:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:04797254-acf0-4263-bce7-543ae25d8f0dshabazA friend pointed me to this project recently: https://github.com/dawsonjon/PicoRX However there's no nice flow chart so it's not easy to follow (I didn't get time to peek at the source code yet). Hardware-wise it's very cut-down, they are trying to do everything in the Pico, whereas personally I would have used I2S DAC too, and maybe Si5351 or some other external freq synth. Looking at the schematic, they went with zero-IF it seems, since they generate IQ externally to the Pico. I didn't think that would work, but I guess the Pico ADC is fast enough to sample both close enough. I think they are using Pico and not Pico 2 so that must be impacting performance (just speculating, I have not tried that project). For 90 deg oscillator output I don't know if say Si5351 can be programmed to do that, it would then be a useful freq synth for zero IF. For a PC-based SDR project I used D-type flip-flops to generate quadrature from a single clock, but that's limiting, since it won't operate at the high speeds for say 144MHz Rx. But personally I think low-IF is the way to go when there's only one ADC in the pico.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234804Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:18:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:afa23ad3-355e-40ea-aea2-bcc4ba553796shabazI don't want to pre-empt the actual answer, but generally, yes : ) once it's been ADC'd, all the math can happen internally in code.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234800Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:12:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:437fc851-fe7e-42ff-a2b1-4874abfef27frobogarynicehttps://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234796Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:27:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:f7811fca-fd84-4f63-9714-168b960fe5cbdang74Impressive. Just so I am on the right track, the blocks depicted within the dotted lines and labeled "RPI Pico2 Software Defined" are all implemented as code being run on the Pico2?https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234795Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:10:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:1480fd55-ec02-41eb-93b6-4d8745afb55cscottiebabeThat is awesome! Thank you for sharing, my google has struggled to turn up sdr projects. I will have to borrow some ideas. Neat that the psoc has hardware accelerated digital filters. On the Pico2 the floating point co-processor has a multiply accumulate instruction (VFMA) and a divide instruction, otherwise it would be a strugglehttps://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attempt/234791Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:09:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:381494eb-ec41-4909-89ba-680acc3ee1d8gpolderCool!, couple of years ago I didi this with a PSOC ( https://www.agri-vision.nl/portal/projects/5-software-defined-radio-with-psoc ) and somewhat later with a Teensy, for the latter I needed a codec to get the audio into the Teensy.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56818/rpi-pico2-sdr---first-attemptFri, 03 Apr 2026 13:52:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:7b94c553-1b99-4ce4-9bdf-64a151cf60d3scottiebabeHave been experimenting with implementing an SDR on a RPI Pico 2. I put together a bare bones SDR for narrowband FM Diagram created with https://app.diagrams.net/ Source: (remove the .txt extension) /cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/91/pico2sdr.drawio.txt The input is IF is oversampled, frequency translated to baseband, filtered, and then decimated by a factor of 3. A polar discriminator demodulates the narrow FM signal and is low-pass filtered and output to an I2S DAC. As a first test I am applying a narrowband FM signal directly to the ADC input of the pico2 The I2S DAC I used has a class-d BTL output. I had to add an LC filter to the output for the scope to display the audio output and not the class-d pulse train. A few different input signals and demodulated output shown on my o-scope When the input is below 10 mVpp the SDR starts to struggle. The output amplitude is a function of the frequency deviation, not the input amplitude. Pretty cool.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/55350/i-am-having-trouble-with-my-pi-desktop-computer-kit-sata-bridge/234434Sun, 15 Mar 2026 22:23:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:1a4983eb-e824-4b16-8507-3bfc299f6295ripWill try again Thanks for your helphttps://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/55350/i-am-having-trouble-with-my-pi-desktop-computer-kit-sata-bridge/234433Sun, 15 Mar 2026 21:57:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:5ad2d667-46d9-4df7-a9c8-d14ed68a0518cnobileIf you have an eSSD on the card, remove the jumper and plug the USB connector from the bridge into your computer. It should pop up as a removable drive that you can read and write to. If it doesn't, the bridge may be bad. Of course you'll also need to plug in a power adapter.https://community.element14.com/products/raspberry-pi/f/forum/56115/pi-desktop-kit-transforms-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-stylish/234432Sun, 15 Mar 2026 21:51:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:328fa796-d549-49e2-a58a-c33fa22ad213cnobileThe short answer is no. The only RPIs that work well are Version 3 and 3B+. Also, currently only works on old versions of the OS. I'm currently (March, 2026) rewriting the code to work on newer versions of Python. The old versions were pre-3.0 versions of Python; nothing new uses them anymore. My GitHub is up, but the code isn't working yet, so bookmark it and come back to check. https://github.com/cnobile2012/pidesktop Switch to the development branch to see the latest code.