Modified Raspbian image with the latest SDR software pre-installed and ready to go. Compatible with every Raspberry Pi.
The PiSDR is a Raspbian based operating system for the Raspberry Pi pre-loaded with multiple Software Defined Radio software. It was created to serve as a fast and reliable bootstrap for SDR projects.
This is a single person project with limited time and resources to acquire expensive SDRs. Only radios validated by tests are supported by this image. This is a limitation to maintain a certain level of quality. If you are a vendor and want your SDR supported by this image, consider donating one unit to the project. The latest version of the PiSDR supports every Raspberry Pi model (Zero, 1, 2, 3 and 4).
List of pre-installed software:
- UHD
- GQRX
- GNURadio
- LimeVNA
- Soapy Remote
- Soapy
- SDR Angel
- LimeSuite
- RTLSDR-Airband
- LimeSDR_toolbox
- osmo-fl2k
- hamlib
- VaporTrail
- Universal Radio Hacker
- dump1090
- FoxTelem
- Quisk
- 0xCoto/VIRGO
- 0xCoto/CygnusRFI
- F5OEO/rpitx
- merbanan/rtl_433
- TLeconte/acarsdec
- gpredict
- EliasOenal/multimon-ng
- pabr/leansdr
We currently support the following SDR:
- RTL-SDR
- LimeSDR USB
- LimeSDR Mini
- LimeNET Micro
- PlutoSDR
- Airspy R2
- Airspy Mini
- Airspy HF Discovery
- Airspy HF+
- HackRF One
- USRP
The download file is hosted on GitHub Releases. Click in the button below to go to the latest release and choose the .tar.xz
file to start downloading your PiSDR image. No .xz
extraction is required. Use this file directly with the flashing software.
The installation process is the same as the vanilla Raspbian. You will need a MicroSD card with at least 8GB of capacity. To transfer the image file to the memory card we recommend the open-source and multi-platform balenaEtcher or the official Raspberry Pi Imager.
If you are feeling quite adventurous, you can copy the image to the memory card using dd
. Warning: One should be extremely cautious using dd
, as with any command of this kind it can destroy data irreversibly.
$ dd bs=4M if=pisdr.img of=/dev/sdX conv=fsync
This image can be used as a standard Raspbian desktop environment. The HDMI Output, SSH, and Remote VNC are enabled by default. For usage information about any pre-installed software, please refer to our Software Page.
Warning: It is important to change the credentials after the first login to ensure your security.
To access the system with this option, you will need an SSH client. This is built-in inside the Command-Line of most operating systems (Linux, macOS and Windows 10). As a GUI alternative, we recommend using the PuTTY application available for Linux and Windows.
$ ssh [email protected]
Password: raspberry
The remote desktop can be accessed using any VNC client. The credentials are the same from the SSH. The default screen resolution is set to 720p. This setting can be easily changed inside the raspi-config
menu (Advanced > Resolution). Note: The Remmina Client is known to be incompatible with this VNC Server.
PiSDR Project was created and maintained since 2019 by Luigi F. Cruz.