Proximity of Raspberry Pi to Kraken SDR

1

I am building out a portable setup and I’m wondering if the system would benefit from the Raspberriy Pi having some distance, or a metal surface between it and the Kraken SDR.

I’m limited on space so I would like to have the Pi immediately next to the Kraken, but in testing and watching the Doppler, I can’t be positive but it seems like the Pi’s location has an effect on the bearings. It’s difficult to replicate so I might just be crazy or observing some other factor at play.

I’m also wondering if using the Pi’s hotspot vs having the Pi connect to a phone hotspot could have an impact on the reliability of my readings. Ie, does the Pi output a higher power from its WiFi radio when hosting a hotspot service to other devices, vs joining a WiFi network as a client. I know the WiFi is using a vastly different band than anything I’d monitor but at that distance to the SDR I’m wondering if it could still cause some kind of desense.

2

The distance of the Pi to the KrakenSDR doesn’t matter so much, because the KrakenSDR is shielded well.

However, keeping the Raspberry Pi out of the plane of the antennas is critical, to 1) not block the antennas line of sight, and cause multipath bouncing off the Pi and 2) not pick up noise from the pi.

The KrakenSDR can’t receive 2.4 GHz WiFi signals, so any output from the Pi isn’t going to make a difference.