BATC Forum

Lots of people have bought themselves a Libre SDRs a (I did) and I have had it working fine with SDR Television (well documented software ).
This was however, only achieved after spending several hours trying to find what works and what to do with the various software and connectivity issues.
So please post 'what worked for you' and especially helpful things like where you found the file(s), what you did with them and then how you got it to do what you wanted
Thanks in anticipation!
Gareth
(As a P.S. Dave G8GKQ ha looked carefully at a LibreSDR and if it could work with Portsdown,the answer is NO.)

Are all Libre SDR's the exact same or does their source alter any technical details affecting usage and compatibility with software and firmware? I get the jitters with this sort of thing in case I end up with one from batch X that no one knows how to tame

I think I did read or hear that Pluto SDR's were going to be discontinued, yet the major resellers seem to be expecting more stock...

I concur with you Gareth, assembling all the key requirements to run a Libre in one location or as a magazine article would be great, I know and accept coders like to code and not to write definitive manuals.

I have bought a number of LibreSDRs (4 so far) and the only difference I have found is some of the passive components used in them.
The later ones seem to use cheaper parts.
They are all based on Analog Devices libiio library so are pretty much interchangeable.
If you pull out the SD card they behave like a Pluto, if you leave the card in they use a slightly different but more extensive version of Linux.
The pluto firmware adds an extra interpolator/decimator stage in the HDL.
The various special ham versions of the firmware add minor features (consult the authors of the firmware).
If you want to use them in Python here is a good link to look at

https://pysdr.org/content/pluto.html

Thanks for the detailed information Charles, I appreciate your time and knowledge.

There is a limitation to the required FAT32 uSD card formatting requirement as I found when I tried to use a 64GB card. Its 32GB max. That took a while to figure out....
Gareth

radiogareth wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 16, 2026 10:17 am

There is a limitation to the required FAT32 uSD card formatting requirement as I found when I tried to use a 64GB card. Its 32GB max. That took a while to figure out....
Gareth

The clue is in the name. A 32 bit file allocation table. That limits it to 2TB with 512 byte sectors, but the actual max will depend on the device and operating system. For a long time Windows limited the maximum size to 32Gb - after all, who needs more than 640k RAM type thinking. Nobody imagined you could get a larger drive. Others followed that lead. That limit was only recently dropped by Windows. Now you can have up to 2TB so future proofed until at least 2026.

The maximum file size was also limited to 4 GB - 2^32 bit integer. That wasn't a problem either, until it was. Given a 1 Tb SD card costs over £100, whereas 64 Gb cards cost almost the same as 32 Gb ones, this 4 Gb limit is the more limiting of the limits, especially when storing high definition video.

Mike

I have attempted to document a little bit of what I have found out and how I have setup and use my LibreSDR. You can find this at

http://lebs.org.uk/libresdr/

I would have put this on the forum but the document is too large.

This is no way a concise explanation and their maybe better ways to do this, but this got my LibreSDR up and working on the wide and narrow band transponders and it’s worked for me.

Please let me know of any errors or admissions and we can keep this updated as more is discovered.

73 Keith GU6EFB

Hi Keith,

Well done, but it is taking forever to load. Could you maybe convert it to PDF ?

Mike

gu6efb wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 16, 2026 4:05 pm

I have attempted to document a little bit of what I have found out and how I have setup and use my LibreSDR. You can find this at

http://lebs.org.uk/libresdr/

I would have put this on the forum but the document is too large.

This is no way a concise explanation and their maybe better ways to do this, but this got my LibreSDR up and working on the wide and narrow band transponders and it’s worked for me.

Please let me know of any errors or admissions and we can keep this updated as more is discovered.

73 Keith GU6EFB

Superb, thanks for your time and effort Keith, excellent stuff! I am sure many of us will find that very useful. I certainly have.

Hi Mike

That was slow, I have now changed it to a PDF and allowed it to be download as well.

73 Keith GU6EFB