Installing the gr-kiwisdr and the kiwiclient libraries to work with GNU Radio
I need some guidance on how to get my version of GNU Radio to work with a KiwiSDR. I have currently looked at these two GitHub links to try and get this to work:
https://github.com/hcab14/gr-kiwisdr
https://github.com/jks-prv/kiwiclient
However, simply downloading these has not taken me to my desired goal. I am not certain what all I need to download to get these to work, and looking at the requirements under the first link in not helpful to me for two reasons: first is that I have no idea what they are (aside from the C++ -11 compiler), and second is that the installation instructions are not helpful to me because I don’t use software that has command line inputs.
My limiting factors for why such help as listed here ( https://forum.kiwisdr.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1485/gnuradio-package-gr-kiwisdr ) is not very useful to me is because I first off don’t understand the language used in the posts, nor do I use software like Linux or Ubuntu. Additionally, I use Windows 10 to run GNU Radio, so the means by which I want to solve my problem is by using the Windows File Manager and downloading the appropriate resources to get the KiwiSDR functionality into GNU Radio.
Comments
Christoph had told me that the GRC stuff for kiwi needs updating....
Yes, unfortunately, gr-kiwisdr is for an old version of GNURadio and needs updating. You can always use kiwirecorder.py for recording IQ files and then analyze these in GNURadio.
Interesting. The solution that you are speaking of, Christoph, is what my team is already doing. I was hoping to connect to a Kiwi directly through GNU Radio and do calculations, but from what you have said, that is no longer possible, at least with newer versions.
I guess another question I have is about the possibility of putting the kiwirecorder.py script into an Embedded Python block and seeing if that does the trick. Do you think this would work?
So, I spoke with one of the computer engineers on my team and talked through this idea a little. He explained that we use a custom Python script which connects to the Kiwi API to get the recording of the IQ data and puts it into a wav file that we can analyze in MATLAB, Python, or GNU Radio. Basically, doing what I said above is just doing what we are already implementing, just entirely inside GNU Radio.
Currently, I want to find a way to get the Kiwi to send the IQ data straight to me in real time and not via a recording. I don't think, based on what he and I talked about and the name of the Python script you suggested, that this is possible now. Any help is appreciated and I do thank you for your responses.
you might look into the use of kiwi_nc.py which is a netcat style thing
I probably need to integrate the netcat functionality back into kiwirecorder as just an option. Because kiwi_nc.py has fallen way behind with all the new features and options kiwirecorder has received over the last few years (especially the resampling feature).
So, correct me if I am wrong, but I could use the kiwi_nc.py all by itself to connect to a Kiwi, and then the Python script will send me just the IQ data to analyze as it comes in (or in real time).
Yes, but that Python script is meant to be run from a Linux shell command line (or similar) where the output of the script can be sent to other programs via the "pipe" facility built into the shell. If you're looking to do this in some other environment under Windows then you'll have to figure out how to adapt for that situation.
Thanks for the clarification. This helps me understand its abilities better.