librtlsdr VS rtl-power-fftw

Download the https://github.com/rtlsdrblog/rtl-sdr-blog or https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr version instead. Even try both, since there may be differences.

Give https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr a try?

I should have mentioned, I'm using this fork of the librtlsdr library, which contains a slightly different version of rtl_power with some extra features, and apparently the "-D" option is treated differently in the version I'm using. The forked version allows you to set a specific branch using the "-D" option, as described below:

There are a few variations of librtlsdr, f.e. this fork; https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr which adds features that aren't available in the version used in most Linux distributions. This adds some extra features and output that are really useful (most notably, regular output of max, min, mean power levels and noise floor). It also has some extra functions to fine tune signals.

Linux, librtlsdr and this port of DSD. FWIW, this port of DSD is newer and also has a Windows binary.

Next I moved onto try feeding the output of rtl_sdr (from https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr) to nrsc5 and that worked well!

You have an older librtlsdr; I'm using the GitHub version, which adds extra features; https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr

Thank you for your reply, I have tried it with the 'static' from the official GitHub https://github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr/releases , but the error remains? Do you mean an even newer version?

github.com/librtlsdr/librtlsdr may be worthy to check out.

https://github.com/AD-Vega/rtl-power-fftw can help. This can be easily piped for various outputs and works with GNUPlot off the bat. Use this on an Android based SDR for foxhunting and Signal seeking.

I like to use rrl_power_fftw

You could use rtl_power_fftw to better record the wider band over a time period. This is similar to rtl_power from librtlsdr, but is more efficient and can dwell for as little as 100ms on any 2.4MHz window (24MHz done in 1 second, f.e.). You can then plot this data through GNUPlot to get visual representations.

These are made using rtl-power-fftw and GNUPlot

I have a rooted Android with an RTL-SDR attached, which I'd take with me if buying a new laptop. I'd sit near the laptop's on display with a stubby duck in the SDR and use rtl-power-fftw to rapid scan 27-1724MHz (fastest is 100ms dwell at 2.4MSps). Takes a minute or two and can be fed into GNUPlot to give you a pretty graph of signals seen. Do it at a low gain and any spikes you see are likely from those sources.

rtl-power-fftw

Look into rtl_power_fftw. It can be run for hours on any host (including a Raspberry Pi) and the spectrum results examined later.

rtl_power_fftw is likely more well suited. It's multithreaded, so can sample IQ and process the data as it samples. It's also faster and uses libfftw for processing (faster and more accurate). Outputs more friendly, too. I use this in part with a signal heatmap project; https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/ifer8j/progress_on_the_android_sdr_linuxdeploy_rtl_power/