Troubleshooting Tip - Grab an SDR dongle

[kmac]

Troubleshooting RF circuits like RFM69 nodes can be a pain. You either have to take it on faith that it is actually transmitting or find a way to verify the output.

A cheap Software Defined Radio (SDR) dongle and some free software is all you need to setup a spectrum analyzer on your computer. The dongle I use is less than $25 on Amazon.

You will be able to view the RF signal generated by your node. You can view or listen to signals in a range of approx. 25mhz to above 1Ghz. With additional software you can even use this setup to decode weather satellite pictures, aircraft beacons and more. I also use a plug-in that lets me scan a range of frequencies so I can listen to police, fire, EMS etc.

If you are interested, I have a brief article on my website. If you scroll down to the bottom you will find 2 videos showing my RFM69 nodes transmitting.
The link is here: Troubleshoot RF - Grab your dongle

[papa]

Wow, kmac, this is very interesting. Seems like it could have a multitude of practical & fun applications. Thanks for sharing.

Here I thought I maybe had enough tools & you give me a good excuse to get another. 

[kmac]

Papa, You can never have enough tools! They can be almost as much fun as the projects.

[greginkansas]

If you have any RFM12B's this works also.
jeelabs.net/boards/6/topics/715?page=8
github.com/dzach/nrfmon