$20 P25 Trunking Scanner (Part 2)

Here’s how to install the OP25 scanning software. If you don’t already have Gnuradio installed on a Linux system, do those two things first.

Any current Linux distribution works. I use Linux Mint which is very similar to Ubuntu.

The easiest way to install Gnuradio is to use a script from the SBRAC radio astronomy group called build-gnuradio. Click on the link, then save the contents of the browser screen (easiest way is to select everything on the web page, then copy that into an empty file and save as “build-gnuradio” in your home directory.) Open a terminal window, make sure you’re in your home directory, and enter “sh build-gnuradio” (without the quote marks) then hit return. You’ll get a couple of prompts, and then the computer will start downloading, building, and installing the gnuradio system. This will take time — maybe a few hours — so be patient.

Once Gnuradio is installed, you can download and install the OP25 scanner software. You might want to look at the OP25 Project page first. Then:

1. Install a couple of program packages that op25 needs. On an Ubuntu or similar system do:”sudo apt-get install libitpp-dev libpcap-dev git” (without the quotes.

2. Now download and build the software. From your home directory, run the following commands in a terminal window:

cd ~
git clone git://op25.osmocom.org/op25.git
cd op25
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

3. When finished, you’ll have a directory called op25 that contains the software.

In part 3, I’ll describe how to configure and run the op25 software.