Easy Setup for RTL-SDR (v3) on Ubuntu Linux


Quick HOWTO on how to configure Ubuntu / Lubuntu (24.04 or later) to work with the RTL-SDL Blog $50  hardware kit (that includes a dipole antenna)

The RTL2832U chip in the v3 dongle is designed for DVB-T (European digital TV standard) and not for the ATSC standard used in North America. While these dongles are excellent for general-purpose software-defined radio, they lack the necessary bandwidth to capture the 6 MHz ATSC channel width, as they are limited to approximately 2.4–2.8 MHz of bandwidth.


If you want to go more in depth and download / install some more software, I highly recommend the “Intercept” package which makes it relatively easy to switch between a LOT of cool things to receive:  https://github.com/smittix/intercept


The following commands were used to get the hardware up and running using only “repository” sources, no downloading software from github and compiling and installing anything yourself.   (If you are willing to go that route, look at Intercept linked above, as its install script makes things as painless as possible.)
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