Radio Astronomy Software Defined Radio (Rasdr)

by zeristoron 5/30/25, 9:14 AMwith 8 comments
by westurneron 5/31/25, 1:02 PM

Are there Rydberg antenna SDRs for radio astronomy?

What sensitivity (?) is necessary to navigate by the EMF of stars?

FWIU this is called astronometry? There's probably a better word than "astral"?:

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44054783 :

> How many astral signals does a receiver need to fix to determine lat/long/altitude given the current time?

> How many astral signals does a receiver need to fix to determine to infer the current time, given geometrically-impossible triangulation and trilateration solutions given the known geometry of the cosmos and the spherical shape of the earth?

by teleforceon 5/30/25, 6:49 PM

Great stuff, imagine doing radio astronomy with this more capable RFSoC SDR platform with 50% discount for academics at around USD2K [1]. It also has free textbook to go with it [2].

[1] RFSoC 4x2 Kit:

https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/university-program/aup-boar...

[2] RFSoC book:

https://www.rfsocbook.com/

by Alpion 5/30/25, 10:33 AM

Anybody has experience using rasdr4? What is it capable of?