{"id":395,"date":"2025-08-22T04:55:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mingyueji.ece.ufl.edu\/?page_id=395"},"modified":"2025-08-22T04:55:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:55:40","slug":"gnu-radio-installation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/teaching\/ece4514c-communication-systems-and-components-fall-2025\/gnu-radio-installation\/","title":{"rendered":"GNU Radio Installation"},"content":{"rendered":"

GNU Radio Installation for Mac (Intel and M1\/2\/3\/4)<\/h1>\n
 <\/div>\n

I recommend you install Gnu Radio using Anaconda (instructions to install Anaconda linked here Links to an external site.<\/span><\/span><\/a>), which will also install a recent version of Python and its associated scientific computing libraries.<\/p>\n

After installing Anaconda, open the Terminal application. If the install worked correctly, then you should be able to use the conda<\/code> commands below to create a new Anaconda environment for the GNU Radio installation:<\/p>\n

conda create --name gr<\/code><\/p>\n

conda activate gr<\/code><\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: you can use any environment name that you would like, “gr” is just a suggestion<\/p>\n

Then, enter the following commands to install both GNU Radio and the additional Osmocom blocks needed to use the dongle:<\/p>\n

conda install -c conda-forge gnuradio<\/code><\/p>\n

conda install -c conda-forge gnuradio-osmosdr<\/code><\/p>\n

After finishing this step, you should be able to type `gnuradio-companion` into the terminal to start the Gnu Radio Companion (GRC) application.<\/p>\n

Whenever you start a new Terminal session, you will need to type conda activate gr<\/code> to activate the environment where you have GRC and the osmosdr software installed.<\/p>\n

Once you have your dongle, connect and extend the antenna, plug the dongle into the computer,  open the Terminal app, activate the environment (run conda activate gr<\/code>), and type the command below into the Terminal:<\/p>\n

osmocom_fft -f 89.1M --averaging --peak-hold -g 40 -s 1.018M<\/code><\/p>\n

If everything is working right, you should see a window showing the power across a frequency band centered at 89.1 MHz. There should be a bit of a peak at 89.1 MHz because of UF’s FM radio station that is at that frequency.<\/p>\n

GNURadio Installation (Windows)<\/h1>\n
 <\/div>\n

The GNU Radio Wiki WindowsInstall Page Links to an external site.<\/span><\/span><\/a>provides several ways to install GNU Radio on a Windows machine. I suggest to try one of these two methods:<\/p>\n

If you do not already have Anaconda installed:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would recommend you try the Windows Radioconda Installer from here: https:\/\/wiki.gnuradio.org\/index.php?title=InstallingGR <\/a><\/p>\n

Links to an external site.<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you already are using Anaconda:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can try the following:<\/p>\n

Open the Anaconda prompt (type “Anaconda prompt” into the search bar in the Windows taskbar). Update your base conda environment:<\/p>\n

conda update -n base conda<\/pre>\n
Then install libmamba as the solver:<\/p>\n
conda install -n base conda-libmamba-solver\nconda config --set solver libmamba<\/pre>\n
Create a new Anaconda environment for the GNU Radio installation by entering the following commands (from Github Issue Discussion Links to an external site.<\/span><\/span><\/a>):<\/p>\n
conda create --name myenv<\/code><\/p>\n
conda activate myenv<\/code><\/p>\n
Note<\/strong>: you can use any environment name that you would like, “myenv” is just a placeholder.<\/p>\n
Then, enter the following commands to install both GNU Radio and the additional Osmocom blocks needed to use the dongle:<\/p>\n
conda install -c conda-forge gnuradio<\/code><\/p>\n
conda install -c conda-forge gnuradio-osmosdr<\/code><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
After installing, you should be able to type “GNU Radio Companion” into the search bar in the Windows taskbar and open the program. However, it is very likely that the dongle will not work yet. This is because you may have to change the default driver it uses.<\/p>\n
Once you have your dongle, plug it in to the computer, open the Anaconda prompt, activate the environment (run conda activate myenv<\/code>), and type rtl_test<\/code>.<\/p>\n
If this fails (with error message similar to Failed to open rtlsdr device<\/em>), it is likely that the drivers for the dongle need to be reinstalled. To do this, the instructions provided here Links to an external site.<\/span><\/span><\/a>can be used. <\/p>\n
After updating the driver, try to run rtl_test<\/code> again (after a few seconds, use Ctrl+C to exit). If you get error messages talking about “lost bytes”, this shouldn’t be a problem. If you want to get rid of these messages, try using the -s option to specify the sampling rate. For example, type rtl_test -s 264800<\/code>to run the test using a sample rate of 264.8kHz. <\/p>\n
After updating the driver, you should be all set!<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GNU Radio Installation for Mac (Intel and M1\/2\/3\/4)   I recommend you install Gnu Radio using Anaconda (instructions to install Anaconda linked here Links to an external site.), which will also install a recent version of Python and its associated scientific computing libraries. After installing Anaconda, open the Terminal application. If the install worked correctly, then you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1389,"featured_media":0,"parent":383,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-395","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/mingyueji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}