868 Mhz RF USB dongle/sniffer ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: onesixright
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2022, 10:52:22 pm
content: Hi All,Looking for a out-of-the-box USB dongle that can sniff RF 868 Mhz.Couldn’t find (to my surprise) a lot of dongles. Most that I found are typical eBay transceivers that you need to hookup via SPI or UART.I’m looking for something that I can just stick in my USB port and start reading data from the serial port.Is there a catch they are not really there? A “USB 868Mhz dongle” doesn’t yield a lot of results (lots of zigbee, BLE, etc.).If anyone has brand/link to a working dongle then that would be awesome.Thanks!

author: rfclown
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 02:47:45 am
content: You can take a cheap RTL-SDR USB dongle and with SDR# (free software) "sniff" 868 MHz RF. I think you have a misunderstanding of what's going on. There is not a single modulation/protocol for data transfer at 868 MHz (or any other frequency). Unless I'm misunderstanding your question.

author: onesixright
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 07:37:37 am
content: Thanks both! I have one.But I want to use some python script to decode the incoming bytes.AFAIK you can not do this with an SDR dongle?

author: Shock
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 07:53:49 am
content: Why don't you just say you want to sniff LoRaWAN or intercept Helium communications etc, if you aren't specific people have no idea what you need.

author: onesixright
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 08:16:24 am
content: @evb149It’s basically data from a weather station that I want to write to a DB. The protocol is for a big part already described. At the end I would just install my py files on a RPI and capture it. I think a normal 868Mhz transceiver with some USB/UART dongle would work, I just don’t like the wires etc. A simple “dongle” would be basically a bit easier for 24/7 data capture.Quote from: Shock on February 23, 2022, 07:53:49 amIt says in the tiitle? I just want 868Mhz, nothing more. And a of dongles I found are for different frequencies (WIFI, BLE, etc.).Can you use LORA 868 sniffer for “normal” 868 Mhz packets?

author: Kean
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 09:05:12 am
content: OK, for a weather station - that is an important piece of info.Here is a USB dongle with RFM12 868MHz module originally designed by JeeLabshttps://www.digitalsmarties.net/products/jeelink-classicYou will likely need to write some code in Arduino to run on the dongle to do the decoding and spit out serial data. There was heaps on info on JeeLabs site athttps://jeelabs.org/(might take some searching as he has archived a lot of stuff). I played with these many years ago, although mostly using 433MHz.I found thishttps://web.archive.org/web/20170104084358/http://jeelabs.net/projects/hardware/wiki/JeeLink

author: Shock
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 09:12:54 am
content: I was asking what you wanted to sniff, it sounds like weather packet radio.https://community.home-assistant.io/t/realtek-rtl2838uhidir-for-868-mhz/142002/1https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001900928203.htmlSomething like that or use with the software/drivers provided in the above post?

author: onesixright
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 04:19:26 pm
content: To @all,Thanks for all the info and links!Bit of more background thenIm software engineer by trade and electronics is just a hobby.. Forgive me for thinking 868 Mhz is just that and you receive a byte streams (which i than can decode). There is a lot more to it apperenty (prob. explains why its not that easy to find)(more to learn!)I have a Davis (Vantage Pro) weather station. And allthough the H/W is great, the opposite is the software. I have now their RF receiver that sends the data to their website (weatherlink). But the paid version (of weatherlink) and iOS App is below par (bugs, lacking functionality and their support simply sucks).There are a few (expensive) products out there (meteobridge, > 400 USD) that does basically what I want. Some people also reversed engineered the protocol and published it. So I thought to write the code myself and sent all data to atime series databasewith Grafana front-end.Bottom line: I wanted a RF dongle that I could just click in. The “ Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69HCW Packet Radio - 868 or 915” is what someone described a good transceiver (works with Davis), but as you see its just a PCB. Which means no case, need to deal with wires, etc. Not something I wanted to use for a 24*365 solution. Hence my question for a dongle thats has it “all”.I played with the SDR and the RTL-SDR, but it didn’t decode the Davis.Maybe I should just opt for the Adafruit, but it in a case

author: Kean
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 23, 2022, 05:01:58 pm
content: Quote from: onesixright on February 23, 2022, 04:19:26 pmThe JeeLink v3 (vs the classic) is quite similar to the Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69 PCB, but in a dongle style plastic case. It is a much older design so it uses an ATmega328 instead of a Cortex M0 chip.https://www.digitalsmarties.net/products/jeelinkThe creator of the JeeLink is Jean-Claude Wippler (from the Netherlands like you), but he has retired and doesn't really support it anymore. So you'd need to do some research and learn a bit about programming Arduino and RFM69 radios to get it to do what you need. It would be very similar in terms of the programming as needed on the Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69 board you mention, and you'll probably find some example code with a bit of searching.FYI, while the Adafruit board doesn't come with a case, I don't think you will need to deal with any wires other than a simple microUSB cable connection. Not sure if that was your concern, or something about soldering extra bits together.Maybe start with the Adafruit board, and if you get it working you can always try get hold of a JeeLink board. You can look at the JeeLink schematic link saved at the web archive for the RFM69 pin connection info, and port any code across to ATmega328 Arduino environment.https://web.archive.org/web/20170104084358/http://jeelabs.net/projects/hardware/wiki/JeeLinkI have some JeeLink modules in a box somewhere, but not the 868 Mhz (as I am in Australia not Europe). I even designed my own PCB based on it that used the same USB dongle plastic enclosures.