Description

gortlsdr is a simple Go interface to devices supported by the RTL-SDR project, which turns certain USB DVB-T dongles employing the Realtek RTL2832U chipset into a low-cost, general purpose software-defined radio receiver. It wraps all the functions in the librtlsdr library (including asynchronous read support).

Supported Platforms:

• Linux
• OS X
• Windows (with a little work)

Installation

Dependencies

• Go tools
• librtlsdr - builds dated after 5/5/12
• libusb
• git

Usage

All functions in librtlsdr are accessible from the gortlsdr package:

go get -u github.com/jpoirier/gortlsdr

Example

See the eample.go file:

go run example.go

Windows

If you don't want to build the librtlsdr and libusb dependencies from source you can use the librtlsdr pre-built package, which includes libusb, but you're restricted to building a 32-bit gortlsdr library.

Building gortlsdr on Windows:

• Download and install git.

• Download and install the Go tools. Create a "go-pkgs" directory-your user folder is a good location-and add a GOPATH variable to your system environment, where GOPATH is set to the go-pkgs path, e.g. GOPATH=c:\users\jpoirier\go-pkgs.

• Download the pre-built rtl-sdr library and unzip it, e.g. to your user folder. Note the path to the header files and the *.dll files in the x32 folder.

• Download gortlsdr, but don't install the package:

      go get -d github.com/jpoirier/gortlsdr
  

• Set CFLAGS and LDFLAGS in rtlsdr.go. Open the rtlsdr.go file in an editor, it'll be in go-pkgs\src\github.com\jpoirier\gortlsdr, and set the following two windows specific flags shown below, but with the correct paths from your system. CFLAGS points to the header files and LDFLAGS to the *.dll files:

      cgo windows CFLAGS: -IC:/Users/jpoirier/rtlsdr
      cgo windows LDFLAGS: -lrtlsdr -LC:/Users/jpoirier/rtlsdr/x32
  

• Build gortlsdr:

      go install github.com/jpoirier/gortlsdr
  

• Insert the DVB-T/DAB/FM dongle into a USB port, open a shell window in go-pkgs\src\github.com\jpoirier\gortlsdr and run the example program: go run example.go. Note, the pre-built rtl-sdr package contains several test executables as well.

Credit

• pyrtlsdr for the great read-me description, which I copied.
• osmoconSDR for the rtl-sdr library.
• Antti Palosaari for sharing!

Todo

-joe