Patron's Pub R&D Exclusive: HackRF Software Defined Radio Experiments

[shiv]

Edit: moved to main forum because it took me so long to actually do something

I ordered a software defined radio this morning for TFSF. I am going to teach everyone all about it and how to use it and show you all the things that we can do with it.

I am going to keep all my notes and project updates for the project in this thread as a Patron's Pub exclusive. Radio gets here at the end of the week

 

[shiv]

Okay so here is the software I’m going to start with to control this little gadget:

GNU Radio - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[shiv]

GitHub - greatscottgadgets/hackrf: low cost software radio platform

low cost software radio platform. Contribute to greatscottgadgets/hackrf development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[shiv]

 

[RaiderAbe]

10-4, good buddy

 

[shiv]

10-4, good buddy

10-4 buddy Come on back, horse trailer on a Cadillac

 

[Deleted member 2886]

10-4 buddy Come on back, horse trailer on a Cadillac

Hey John, are you knowledgeable with regard to emf radiation shielding?
I'm currently looking into setting up either an isolated faraday cage, or painting the whole house with specialized emfr paint and covering all windows with shielding material, or both.

 

[shiv]

Hey John, are you knowledgeable with regard to emf radiation shielding?
I'm currently looking into setting up either an isolated faraday cage, or painting the whole house with specialized emfr paint and covering all windows with shielding material, or both.

To some degree yes. I specialize in radar, so I’m very familiar with EM concepts

 

[shiv]

Hey John, are you knowledgeable with regard to emf radiation shielding?
I'm currently looking into setting up either an isolated faraday cage, or painting the whole house with specialized emfr paint and covering all windows with shielding material, or both.

Go to the 34 minute mark in the video below:

 

[Deleted member 2886]

Thanks man, was really helpful, and you've an excellent way of explaining things.
May I ask for your opinion on three products I'm considering, only if you have the time of course.
Trying to understand if using all three of these will be sufficient to block all external EMF, including from internal wiring,...
•1)Interior lining-

•2)Exterior piant-

•3)Window lining-

Any advice will be appreciated, cheers man.

 

[shiv]

Nearly one year later I got this bitch functioning. I only started messing with it last week. I tried to do it through windows but it was a huge pain

Installed Ubuntu on an old laptop and we are running. I’ll post some updates soon

 

[shiv]

All the next few posts are pictures of me measuring actual signals that are bouncing around the atmosphere with the hackRF device

here are the radio station signals by my house. The screen on the right. Each peak is a different station. The one on the left is very strong

 

[shiv]

Here we go this is a better one of the radio stations. I changed the plot settings a bit

 

[shiv]

edit: not wifi. This is actually very very low frequency, like 2Hz

 

[shiv]

Something interesting here. That tallest peak is the center of the wifi spectrum, 2.3GHz. The center of this plot is 2.280. This is some kind of pulsed signal happening at 2.2795

 

[shiv]

I centered up on the pulsing signal above. Pulsed signals look like a sinc function in a spectrum. The shape of the plot is actually one pulses signal rather than non pulsed signals which are basically just straight lines

Sinc function:



Pulsing signal at 2.227515 GHz with a 67 khz prf (mainly not for myself to think about later)



This means there is an electromagnetic wave traveling in the atmosphere going up and down 2,227,515,000 times a second, but chopped into pulses that happen 67,000 times a second.

 

[shiv]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935118300355

 

[shiv]

Pulsing signal at 2.227515 GHz with a 67 khz prf (mainly not for myself to think about later)

View attachment 115198

This means there is an electromagnetic wave traveling in the atmosphere going up and down 2,227,515,000 times a second, but chopped into pulses that happen 67,000 times a second.

My current guess is that this actually a single Wi-Fi network and the pulses are packets of information

 

[shiv]

 

[ChicagoFats]

Can you give us a laymens explnation of what’s going on here?

Are you scanning your immediate environment to see what kind of waves are in the atmosphere?

Radio stations, wi-if, other stuff?

 

[shiv]

Can you give us a laymens explnation of what’s going on here?

Are you scanning your immediate environment to see what kind of waves are in the atmosphere?

Radio stations, wi-if, other stuff?

Yeah this exactly. Just “sniffing” what signals are out there. For the radio stations the x-axis goes from 90MHz to 110MHz - which is the FM radio spectrum. The huge spike on there is a radio station 96.9 which has an antenna close to my house



It’s kind of like a microphone receiving pressure waves which translate to sounds, but here the antenna receives electromagnetic waves

Next, I am going to center up on one of those frequencies and sample it on my computer, then play the samples out on my speaker, which will be the actually sound from the radio station

 

[shiv]

Here you go @ChicagoFats - we should team up and become billionaires

https://alo.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Spectral-Alalysis-of-Stock-Return-Volatility-Correlation-and-Beta.pdf

 

[ChicagoFats]

Here you go @ChicagoFats - we should team up and become billionaires

https://alo.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Spectral-Alalysis-of-Stock-Return-Volatility-Correlation-and-Beta.pdf

Wow, I’m going to try and wrap my head around this at some point today.

 

[HurricaneBlaze]

Yeah this exactly. Just “sniffing” what signals are out there. For the radio stations the x-axis goes from 90MHz to 110MHz - which is the FM radio spectrum. The huge spike on there is a radio station 96.9 which has an antenna close to my house

View attachment 115437

It’s kind of like a microphone receiving pressure waves which translate to sounds, but here the antenna receives electromagnetic waves

Next, I am going to center up on one of those frequencies and sample it on my computer, then play the samples out on my speaker, which will be the actually sound from the radio station

Is your ultimate goal to create/post your own radio (talk or whatever) off this?
And can/will the equipment work while traveling, or do you need to be based somewhere?

 

[shiv]

Is your ultimate goal to create/post your own radio (talk or whatever) off this?
And can/will the equipment work while traveling, or do you need to be based somewhere?

No, I’m not worried about broadcasting, just receiving right now. You need a license to actually broadcast, and even then you can only do it in very small bands.

But yes, all the equipment will travel. And in theory, you can pick up any wireless signal and see what information is being passed. If it’s not encrypted, as long as you know the modulation scheme, you can read what information is out there.

Just learning right now

 

[Rebarcock.]

@CuriousFiend @Croot_Overlord

Is 5g really as bad as it has be written about? Why is it worse than 4g or radio?
I have basic understanding of waves. Probably more than most people but I'm not a radar gut either

 

[Cyberty]

@Croot_Overlord

Have you read about “Angry Kitten”?

https://www.popsci.com/technology/air-force-angry-kitten-system-explained/

 

[shiv]

@Croot_Overlord

Have you read about “Angry Kitten”?

https://www.popsci.com/technology/air-force-angry-kitten-system-explained/

Yeah I’m familiar

 

[TopHook]

 

[Cyberty]

Yeah I’m familiar

View attachment 127060

Cool. Thought that use of electronic radio was right up your alley.

 

[shiv]

Cool. Thought that use of electronic radio was right up your alley.

Yeah its right up my alley

You might find this interesting. People have set up SDRs all around the world and stream the output on this server

websdr.org

 

[shiv]

@CuriousFiend @Croot_Overlord

Is 5g really as bad as it has be written about? Why is it worse than 4g or radio?
I have basic understanding of waves. Probably more than most people but I'm not a radar gut either

I’ve got several posts about this here and there

I’ll see if I can dig one up

 

[Mahozzle]

This is cool… not understanding the usefulness, but that’s because I’m a dumb!

 

[shiv]

This is cool… not understanding the usefulness, but that’s because I’m a dumb!

Anything wireless - cell phones, Wi-Fi, radio, Antenna tv

Radars - weather radar, aircraft radar

All the new car safety breaking, adaptive cruise use radar

Melting peoples brains, etc

 

[shiv]

Wow, I’m going to try and wrap my head around this at some point today.

For starters, (in general) you look at prices over time. What the prices were, what they are, what they will be in the future. The x-axis is always time when you look at equity prices plots.

^this is considered the “time domain” in engineering speak

 

[shiv]

Any fluctuating time domain signal can be represented in the frequency domain. Here is a rough sketch, but I will try and better explain later

 

[Chief_Trojan]

Yeah I’m familiar

View attachment 127060

The pic in that article was shot at J-PRIMES.

 

[shiv]

The pic in that article was shot at J-PRIMES.

This one?



I’m not familiar with J-PRIMES, but looks like a massive anechoic chamber

 

[TopHook]

This one?

View attachment 127082

I’m not familiar with J-PRIMES, but looks like a massive anechoic chamber

sound testing?

 

[Chief_Trojan]

This one?

View attachment 127082

I’m not familiar with J-PRIMES, but looks like a massive anechoic chamber

Yep, that’s the one. It’s big enough to hang a fighter and bounce RF everywhere.

Same squadron I’m in.