Tagged: rtl2832u

SSTV from the International Space Station Scheduled for Dec 24 – Dec 31

Thank you to Maksim for submitting news that the International Space Station (ISS) will be transmitting Slow Scan TV (SSTV) in late December to celebrate 20 years of amateur radio operations onboard the space station. The ISS periodically transmits SSTV images during special events throughout the year. You can keep up to date on the ISS SSTV schedule on the ARISS-SSTV site.

An ARISS Slow Scan TV (SSTV) event is scheduled from the International Space Station (ISS) for late December. This will be a special SSTV event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ARISS operations on the ISS. The event is scheduled to begin on December 24 and continue through December 31. Details to follow later. Dates are subject to change due to ISS operational adjustments.

With an RTL-SDR and a simple V-Dipole from our RTL-SDR Blog V3 antenna kit it is possible to receive these images when the ISS passes over. ISS passes for your city can be determined online, and the SSTV images can be decoded with a program like MMSSTV.

An example SSTV image from the last ISS SSTV event
An example SSTV image from an SSTV event held in previous years.

KerberosSDR with DF-Aggregator Direction Finding Attempt

Back in October we first posted about the release of DF-Aggregator, a program by Corey (ckoval7) which can be used to receive and plot data from multiple KerberosSDR direction finding units. 

If you weren't already aware KerberosSDR is our 4-channel phase coherent capable RTL-SDR unit that we previously crowdfunded back in 2018. With a 4-channel phase coherent RTL-SDR interesting applications like radio direction finding (RDF), passive radar and beam forming become possible. It can also be used as four separate RTL-SDRs for multichannel monitoring.

In one of his latest DragonOS videos, Aaron has been testing out DF-Aggregator. In his test he had two vehicles driving around each with a KerberosSDR and antenna array, with both using a mobile data connection to send data to a remote PC running DF-Aggregator. The results were successful, with the team being able to determine the location of a broadcast FM transmitter to within a few meters after a short drive.

DragonOS Focal KerberosSDR x2 Mobile w/ DF-Aggregator Direction Finding Attempt 2 (Better Results)

Frugal Radio: SDR Guide Ep 8: Overcoming FM Broadcast Interference + Simple DMR Plugin Demo

In this weeks episode of Frugal Radio's SDR Guide videos Rob shows how a FM bandstop filter can help in certain situations. A FM bandstop is designed to reduce the power level of FM broadcast stations that are received by your antenna. FM broadcast stations are often extremely strong, and this can cause an SDR to overload, resulting in poor reception on other frequencies.

In the video he demonstrates how he is unable to receive air traffic control signals due to FM broadcast overload. After inserting an FM bandstop filter the air traffic signals become receivable. We note that we sell a low cost FM bandstop filter in our store.

2020 SDR Guide EP8 : Overcoming FM Broadcast Interference with a Nooelec flamingo band stop filter

In a second video Rob demonstrates the use of the recently released Simple DMR plugin which we posted about earlier.

Quickest way to monitor DMR with your SDR? Simple DMR for SDR# installed in under 5 mins!

Gorizont-RTLSDR Linux Distro Updated to V2.0.3

Gorizont-RTLSDR is an RTL-SDR focussed Linux distribution based on Xubuntu 20.04 LTS. Recently it was updated to V2.0.3. The creator Steve Cox writes: 

New release and upgrade of gorizont linux, v 2.0.3. uploaded to sourceforge. The new AMSynch option in gqrx 2.14.2 works rather well for broadcast stations in direct sampling mode.

  • gqrx 2.14.2 - now with AMSynch mode!
  • SigDigger 0.1.0
  • Universal Radio Hacker 2.9.0
  • gqrx-scan
  • Welle.io 2.2 for all your DAB and DAB+ needs.
  • Baudline
  • fldigi
  • fmsg
  • Due to multiple issues with linux versions of Dream DRM, Dream DRM is now installed as a Win 32 .exe running under wine. It works!
  • w-scan for creating DVB-T/ATSC/etc. scan files for TV viewing using VLC

DSDPlusUI Now Available as a Plugin for SDR#

At the beginning of 2020 Annunaki (@StupotSinders) released his third party user interface for DSDPlus. DSDPlus is a digital speech decoder capable of decoding protocols such as P25 P1, DMR, NXDN and more with an SDR such as the RTL-SDR. As it is a command line tool, it can be a little daunting for some users, which is where the GUI comes in handy.

Recently Annunaki has released an SDR# plugin version of DSDPlusUI. This makes it so you can visualize the digital voice signals at the same time as controlling and decoding with DSDPlus. The plugin is available on the DSDPlusUI website at dsdplusui.com. To use it you will need to be using SDR# 1777 or later.

DSDPlusUI as a plugin for SDR#

Steve Mould Hacks Into his Car with a HackRF

Over on YouTube popular science content creator Steve Mould has uploaded a video showing how he was able to open his own car using a HackRF software defined radio. In the video Steve first uses the Universal Radio Hacker software to perform a simple replay attack by using his HackRF (and also an RTL-SDR V3) to record the car's keyfob signal away from the car and replay it near the car.

Steve goes on to note that most cars use rolling code security, so a simple replay attack like the above is impractical in most situations. Instead he notes how a more advanced technique called "rolljam" can be used, which we have posted about a few times in the past. Later in the video Steve interviews Samy Kamkar who was the security researcher who first popularized the rolljam technique at Defcon 2015. 

I Hacked Into My Own Car

Frugal Radio: SDR Guide Ep 7 – Trunk DMR & NXDN digital with DSDPlus and One RTL-SDR

In this episode of Frugal Radio's ongoing SDR guide videos Rob demonstrates how you can use an RTL-SDR with DSDPlus to monitor DMR and NXDN digital voice radio communications. Rob writes:

With a simple Software Defined Radio (SDR) and some free or frugal software, you can monitor digital radio systems like DMR and NXDN in your area.

his video is a demonstration of how I set up DSDPlus to monitor DMR and NXDN networks, and shows how to modify the various files that help the software trunk track the system with your SDR.

More details with links to the software (DSDPlus) and hardware (1 x RTL-SDR v3) I used in this video can be found at https://frugalradio.com/monitor-dmr

f you are unsure about how trunking systems work, I suggest watching the overview at the beginning of Episode 6 - https://youtu.be/zuUTXHbUvpw

2020 SDR Guide Ep 7 : Trunk DMR & NXDN digital with DSDPlus and 1 RTL-SDR

Etherify 4: Using PC Ethernet RF Leakage to Transmit QRSS CW

Recently we've posted about Etherify a few times, mostly about how the unintentional RF leakage from the Raspberry Pi 4 Ethernet hardware is really strong and can be modulated to transmit data. In one of his latest posts Jacek Lipkowski (SQ5BPF) explores if Ethernet ports on PC's exhibit any sort of RF leakage too, and if it can be modulated into a data signal.

The answer is yes, there is some RF leakage, however unlike the Pi 4 the speed at which the leakage can be modulated is much slower, and also the signal strength is much lower. Despite the slow modulation speed, Jacek was still able to transmit data by using QRSS CW, which is essentially just very slow morse code. Using this idea he was able to transmit, and receive the CW signal with an RTL-SDR over a distance of 3 meters at 375 MHz, 625 MHz and 250 MHz. The signal strength is nothing like the Pi 4's Ethernet RF leakage which can be received strongly from over 50 meters away however.

Etherify: Transmitting QRSS CW via Ethernet RF leakage from PC to PC