WarDragon: Real-Time Drone Remote ID Tracking with Snifflee, TAR1090 and ATAK

Over on YouTube Aaron, creator of DragonOS and the WarDragon kit has uploaded a video showing how he was able to detect drone Remote ID with a Bluetooth dongle and plot it on a TAK map. Remote ID is an RF system regulated in many countries that broadcasts drone information, including GPS position, often over Bluetooth Long Range or Wi-Fi. Note that the Bluetooth dongle is not an SDR, but this story may still be interesting for many readers.

The setup uses Sniffle, which is an open-source Bluetooth sniffer program for TI CC1352/CC26x2 based Bluetooth hardware. Sniffle passes sniffed data packets into SniffleToTak which is open-source software that relays the drone ID packets into a TAK server, which can then be viewed in TAK software like ATAK.

Aaron tests the setup with his DJI drone flying nearby, and shows that the drone is successfully detected and plotted on the TAK map. He also plots the positions of nearby aircraft received via a second ADS-B receiver to show that drones and aircraft can be plotted on the same map.

WarDragon Enhancing Drone Remote ID Real-Time Tracking + ADS-B w/ ATAK (TAR1090, Sniffle) Part 3

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DeepRad – Modular RTL-SDR System Now Crowdfunding on Crowd Supply

Back in May, we posted about the upcoming DeepRad, which is advertised as a modular RTL-SDR system, providing RTL-SDR PCB boards without USB and SMA connectors that are seated into a custom motherboard. A few days ago they released their crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply.

The individual DeepRad RTL-SDR units are priced at US$80 each, whereas the 'DeepRad Quad' which includes four units and a motherboard is priced at US$340 with free US shipping and $12 intl. shipping for both products. It appears that the idea behind the modular boards is to allow people designing a custom PCB to easily seat an RTL-SDR on their design.

The DeepRad Quad advertises 'Synchronize TCXO', which implies that the four units can run from the same clock. However, we don't see any noise source, distribution, or switching hardware, and no heat management, so we don't expect it to be useful for coherent projects like the KrakenSDR is.

Over on Reddit there has been some discussion about the system.

The DeepRad Quad
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TechMinds: RigExpert Responds to TechMinds’ Review of the FobosSDR

In a previous video released last week, Matt from the TechMinds YouTube channel reviewed the RigExpert FobosSDR. The FobosSDR is an RX-only USB 3.0 device, with a 100 kHz to 6 GHz tuning range, 50 MHz of bandwidth, and 14-bit ADC resolution. It comes in at a price reasonable for its specs, which is US$395 from US resellers and from EU resellers around 495,00 €.

However, while the specs look good on paper, Matt's previous review exposed some severe imaging problems with the device, and noted that lower cost SDRs with similar specs performed much better. Imaging is when strong out of band signals overlap onto other bands, causing issues with receiving signals. This is usually a symptom of incorrect code, poorly thought out design, or poor filtering in hardware.

In the latest video Matt goes through RigExpert's reply to his video review. In the video the reply from RigExpert stresses that only certain sample rates chosen by the user will result in correct performance in terms of imaging. When the correct sampling rate is chosen Matt observes that the imaging is resolved on the HF bands, although it does not help with the broadcast FM band imaging onto the airband in VHF.

RigExpert also stresses that the FobosSDR is not designed to be a high performance HF SDR and that it is designed to excel in the 50 MHz to 6 GHz range only. However, Matt points out that their marketing goes against this statement, as it advertises that FobosSDR has applications in "high performance HF" and "HAM radio".

They also note that the official software for FobosSDR is uSDR, and this should be used for best performance. But in his tests, Matt notes that the uSDR software has poor audio quality and FFT resolution on the waterfall, with no settings found to improve it.

Overall, many of the problems seem to stem from a disconnect between the marketing, documentation, and technical people working on the FobosSDR. It also seems that some of the issues could have been solved with additional or tighter built-in filters. But with the retail cost already in the upper range of this spec bracket, they may have opted for the cheaper option which is to tell users to use external filters if necessary. 

RigExpert Responded To My Fobos SDR Review Video!

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TechMinds: A Review of the RigExpert FobosSDR

Earlier this year the Ukrainian company RigExpert released the FobosSDR, and only recently has it become available to most people in the world via global resellers. FobosSDR is an RX-only USB 3.0 device, with a 100 kHz to 6 GHz tuning range, 50 MHz of bandwidth, and 14-bit ADC resolution. Current pricing from US resellers is US$395 and from EU resellers around 495,00 €.

Recently Matt from the TechMinds YouTube channel reviewed the FobosSDR, showing an unboxing, description and review of the hardware. Unfortunately, while the specs on paper look good, Matt notes that the FobosSDR does not perform well.

In the video, Matt starts by testing around the broadcast FM band and shows how the FobosSDR suffers from multiple mirrored signals, even with the gain settings turned right down. He notes that other similarly priced SDRs perform a lot better and that even an RTL-SDR performs better.

Matt then goes on to test the HF bands, noting that there is no gain control available on these bands and that there are also extreme levels of signal mirroring all across the HF band.

Unfortunately, we are starting to see other similar reports about poor performance from the FobosSDR. For example, on arcticdx's blog he also does not recommend the SDR [1][2],

RigExpert Fobos SDR 100KHz To 6GHz SDR Receiver

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HackRF and Portapack Featured in Recent Linus Tech Tips Video

Over on YouTube the Linus Tech Tips channel has recently released a video about the HackRF titled "It’s TOO Easy to Accidentally Do Illegal Stuff with This". Linus Tech Tips is an extremely popular computer technology YouTube channel. The HackRF is a popular transmit capable software defined radio that was released about 10 years ago. The portapack is an add-on for the HackRF that allows the HackRF to be used as a handheld device, and when combined with the Mayhem firmware, it enables easy access to some controversial tools that could get a user into a lot of legal trouble very fast.

In the video Linus, whose team is based in Canada, mentions that they decided to purchase the HackRF and similar devices because of the Canadian government's plan to ban various RF tools, including the Flipper Zero and HackRF.

Linus then discusses and demonstrates "van eck phreaking" with TempestSDR, showing how he can use the HackRF to recover the video from a PC monitor wirelessly. He then goes on to demonstrate how the Portapack can be used to jam a wireless GoPro camera transmitting over WiFi. 

Finally, Linus discusses the legality and morality of such devices being available on the market.

It’s TOO Easy to Accidentally Do Illegal Stuff with This

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Moving on from WXtoIMG for NOAA APT Weather Satellite Decoding

Thank you to Jacopo (@lego11/IU1QPT) and Robin (@OK2AWO) for writing in and sharing with us his thoughts about how the SDR community as a whole should move on from the use of WXtoIMG, and instead switch to SatDump, which now has full feature parity with WXtoIMG and additional features too. SatDump is available on Windows, MacOS, Linux, and even on Android. An up-to-date guide for receiving APT with SatDump written by @lego11 can be found on his website here.

Historically, WXtoIMG has been the software of choice for the popular hobby of decoding NOAA APT weather satellite images with RTL-SDR and other SDRs. However, the software has unfortunately been abandoned by its authors for several years, and can now only be found on third-party websites which increases the possibility of downloading a virus. Also, a hack involving a proxy, or directly updating via a powershell script is now required to allow WXtoIMG to update its TLE/ Kepler files due to the celestrak.com to celestrak.org domain name change.

Lego11 also notes a whole host of other issues regarding vulnerabilities and bugs with WXtoIMG:

  • The software is ancient and uses obsolete libraries, such as Visual C++ 2002 with .NET. These libraries are the main concern when it comes to WXtoIMG, as I don't find it particularly likely for someone to find an entry point through the software itself. However, a much more likely scenario is a virus abusing the loaded library in memory when WXtoIMG is running and using it to gain an entry point. There are at least 20 vulnerabilities affecting MSVCR70.dll, and all are well known (such as CVE-2007-0025) which makes it even more concerning. CVE-2008-4255 in particular allows for remote code execution on the user's computer, which is very serious. There are certainly many more vulnerabilities that have been exploited regarding MSVCR70, but due to the obsolescence of this software component they are usually not tracked in a CVE.

    In either case, just as nobody would use Windows XP as a daily driver in 2024, nobody should use WXtoIMG as a matter of caution, even if the above mentioned vulnerabilities were not present.

    As for the bugs, there are many. Here's a list of the most important ones:
     
  • Cannot update TLE without external software, complicating the experience for newcomers and adding extra failure points
     
  • Map overlay doesn't work properly most of the times, especially if the user starts to receive the satellite before it is at least at 1° elevation
     
  • WXtoIMG will crash if Microsoft Defender starts a memory scan during a pass. This will lose the recording
     
  • WXtoIMG uses an outdated Win32 API to access audio. This doesn't always work on Windows 11 and Microsoft has stated that it will be removed soon.
     
  • WXtoIMG uses ALSA on Linux. The vast majority of Linux distributions don't support ALSA directly anymore, and WXtoIMG cannot work through an audio server (e.g. Pulseaudio) like all Linux applications are supposed to. Therefore, live recording doesn't work on Linux at all.
     
  • WXtoIMG doesn't run on MacOS anymore, as the system will refuse execution due to security problems and missing libraries.
     
  • WXtoIMG cannot support wav files from e.g. SDR# or SDR++ without using a third party tool such as NOAA-APT.
     
  • If a user moves or copies a recorded WAV file (see above), the map overlay will no longer work.
     
  • WXtoIMG is especially sensitive to concurrent CPU usage, which will result in "tears" on the image (as is evident on the images in the guy's tutorial). It cannot handle multitasking well on systems more modern than Windows XP due to changes in how the CPU scheduler works in more modern kernels.
     
  • WXtoIMG will lock up and then crash if the user starts it without first having updated TLEs due to missing NOAA-17. This is very serious, as it happens to newcomers all the time. It is one of the top support request emails/messages I receive. It is not possible to fix this crash easily.
     
  • WXtoIMG doesn't have updated coefficients for calibration, therefore NOAA-15 will look excessively cold compared to other satellites.
SatDump Receiving APT Weather Satellite Images
SatDump Receiving APT Weather Satellite Images (from @lego11's tutorial)
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Exploring Russian and International Analog TV From Leaky Cable TV Networks via the Airspy Server Network

Thank you to RTL-SDR.COM reader Micha for submitting a story about how he has been able to use SDR# and the Airspy Server Network to explore cable TV stations across the globe via cable TV signal interference.

If you were unaware, the SDR# software from Airspy.com has access to the Airspy Server Network, which is a collection of public Airspy SDRs available all over the world that can be accessed freely over the internet. To access these SDRs simply select "Airspy Server Network" as the source in SDR#, and click on the "..." button next to the server address entry. A map will pop up where you can select from SDRs all over the world.

Using Airspy SDRs in Russia, and in other countries (Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Indonesia, Vietnam, Micha found that there were several analog TV signals found at frequencies that should not have terrestrial TV signals there. Upon further investigation, he realized that these are actually cable TV signals that are leaking and causing interference across the RF bands. Micha notes that he's also observed how the leaking signals often change in frequency and intensity too, making it difficult to keep track of them.

Combined with the TVSharp SDR# plugin, Micha was able to recover some (very rough) images from these interfering signals. Micha has provided several images shown below that demonstrate Russian cable leakage, as well as for Mexico and Argentina.

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Receiving Weather Images from NOAA Weather Satellites with an RTL-SDR Blog V4 and Multipurpose Dipole Antenna Kit

Over on YouTube Baltic Lab has uploaded a video showing how he was able to successfully use an RTL-SDR Blog V4 and the included multipurpose dipole antenna kit to receive images from polar-orbiting NOAA weather satellites.

In the video, Baltic Lab shows how to orient the dipole antenna in a "V-Dipole" shape which optimizes it for receiving from satellites. He also shows how to use a VNA to confirm that the telescopic elements on the dipole are extended to the correct length, noting that he was able to achieve a VSWR of less than 1.2 between the target frequencies of 135 to 138.1 MHz, with a near perfect match at 136.5 MHz.

He then demonstrates receiving the NOAA APT signals with his laptop, and successfully recovering the weather satellite image.

Images From Space: Receiving Weather Images Directly from NOAA Weather Satellites

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