Any way to test Outernet tuner other than connect it to the Outernet normal setup? Still not getting a good enough signal. Only about SNR of 1. Signal State mostly at 3. Has to be at least 4. Can SDR# somehow see the dongle, or any other SDR program like it? Already replaced the LNA with new one, checked antenna, connectors, orientation, still at same location, power supply.
Before I saw trouble, everything worked. Got SNR of 5 and above, decoded packed, saw the data. Not anymore. Using RPi 3 and rxOS 3.1 Stumped.
I guess Tuner is bad?
The tuner dongle is an RTL-SDR and should work in any program that supports similar devices (SDR#, GQRX, cubicSDR, etc…) Since the bias T seems to be permanently on take care to not directly connect the dongle to an electrically shorted antenna or you will damage it.
Has anyone tried what NN8N suggests?
Yes, I have connected the tuner to my laptop running SDR# as NN8N said. However, the Outernet patch antenna is not electrically shorted, so you would not risk damage.
Normally you would connect the E4000 dongle to the LNA which uses the power from the bias T. I do not think that the LNA passes DC power to the antenna anyway, but I haven’t verified it.
Anyway, with SDR# I have seen a very faint signal at the Outernet frequency. I don’t know if my E4000 or LNA are defective or if I am in a location with a lot of interference, but the signal appears much to weak for actually decoding the data.
I have tried other antennas and SDRs with far better results.
I did this today. hooked up my 10 turn helix in place of the the patch. Looked like I was still getting very low SNR. Didn’t continue any further. Maybe I should have tried the Tuner with SDR#, but without the RPi and rxOS, I couldn’t any decode any data. So I bit the bullet and ordered another Tuner. I really don’t know what happened. For a week or so I was getting SNR 5+ and good decodes. Now mostly below 2. Checked everything. No clue. Has been 100 F a few days. May that did it? So soon I’ll have 2 of each: LNA’s and Tuners. Enough is Enough Already!