24/03/2026
This may be of interest to you TV guys.
📺📡 APP/TOOL OF THE WEEK: SDR Television — and why DATV has moved on so quickly
Digital Amateur Television has changed a lot in a very short time, and SDR Television is one of the clearest signs of that. Simon Brown’s latest SDR Television v1.0.9 landed on 13 March 2026, and he describes it as a stable solution that works well with QO-100, with more receive work already planned for v1.1.
A few years ago, getting into amateur TV often meant a much more specialist path: BATC’s own equipment guides were built around things like domestic satellite receivers, MiniTiouner hardware and progressively more complex Portsdown transmitter builds. BATC’s Portsdown timeline shows how fast things evolved too: the original 2017 version was Raspberry Pi based, while the 2019 version added audio for H.264, we**am support, early LimeSDR Mini support and better receive options. RSGB also notes that modern digital ATV solutions such as DATV Express with Pluto/LimeSDR Mini and BATC Portsdown are broadband enough to generate signals from 70 MHz to 3.4 GHz.
The biggest accelerant has been QO-100. AMSAT-UK says Es’hail-2 / QO-100 carries an 8 MHz wideband transponder specifically for experimental digital modes and DVB amateur television, and it gives constant, reliable coverage across Africa, Europe and the Middle East, reaching as far west as Brazil and east to Thailand. BATC’s own summaries show how much this changed activity: by 2019 it was already noting that more DATV activity was moving onto the QO-100 wideband transponder, and by 2022 BATC was highlighting how many members were active on the satellite.
What makes SDR Television especially interesting is that it pushes the entry barrier down again. Brown described it as a pure software DVB-S2 solution with no extra hardware such as the MiniTiouner required, and said that for receive, even an RTL-SDR could be enough in the right scenario. Current documentation says receive can be done with any suitable SDR at the required frequency, while transmit support is built around ADALM Pluto / LibreSDR. The manual also explicitly lists receive paths such as RTL Dongle v4, Airspy R2 and SDRplay. That is a major shift: better pictures, more flexibility, and fewer boxes on the bench.
And this is why operators are taking notice. The attraction is not just that it decodes video; it is that it starts to bring DATV into the same software-led world the rest of amateur radio has moved into. SDR Television adds practical features such as preset frequencies, a restored decode panel, IQ data recording, a centre receiver function, improved resampling and LDPC work, plus continuing weak-signal and receive-chain improvements in the latest releases. It also integrates cleanly with OBS Virtual Camera, which is exactly the sort of workflow modern operators already understand.
The wider point is this: amateur television has not suddenly become “easy”, because dishes, LNB stability, filtering, symbol rates and clean transmit practice still matter. But it has become more approachable. Between QO-100, BATC’s live streams and spectrum monitors, and newer SDR-based tools, it is now much easier to watch, learn, experiment, and then get on the air yourself. BATC even streams the QO-100 net live every Thursday night at 8pm, and its Goonhilly-based wideband monitor lets people see what is happening on the transponder in real time. That kind of visibility simply did not exist for most amateurs a few years ago.
Bottom line: SDR Television is not just a clever app. It is a sign of where DATV is heading — more software-defined, more accessible, and far more achievable for ordinary radio amateurs than many people still realise.
👇 Have you tried DATV yet — or is it still one of those parts of the hobby you watch from the sidelines?
Moonraker: https://www.moonrakeronline.com
