fuzzy_bunny

Perhaps he meant soldering SMT is an art, which even if it doesn't qualify to go into an art exhibit, at least it does require some degree of skill and steadiness in the hands. High skill in anything is an art form, and some of the Chinese boards I have seen have shown the opposite side of the spectrum ( really, really, _bad_ connections and style ), as well as some that have been as well produced as anything I find made in the West. Sometimes the most apparently simple things are also paradoxically the most difficult to do well, although as far as soldering goes, I have been doing it long enough that I pretty much take my own ( admittedly craftsmanship laden ) work as a matter of course, as I also take my own humility for granted. -FuzzyBunny

Don't use acid core solder. For ease of use, lead based solder is easier to work with, but has been banned in the EU. Using the environmentally friendly ( 99-1? ) solder requires higher temperatures, and is in general, harder to work with without damaging the board or components than using lead based solder, which works at a lower temperatures. As for lead being an environmental hazard as it is used on PCB's... eh, whatever. If the EU says so, it must be true. -FuzzyBunny

My general rule of thumb is, if it is too hot to hold with your hand, or betwixt you forefinger and thumb, it is running too hot. One way to cool it off to some extent is to get it away from your computer or desktop, possibly dangling in mid air, with a USB extension cable. The more surface area that is exposed to the air, and the more cool air (as opposed to desktop PC exhaust) the more heat it will dissipate. Get one and see what you think. -FuzzyBunny

In the Realtek 2838/820 combinations I have tested ( I have three ), it doesn't seem to matter much what size they are. The only thing I might be concerned about with something that small is that heat dissipation may be problematic. The only other concern I might have is that with a smaller board like it has, there would be less room for other surface mount components ( possibly filters ), which may help in noise reduction and boosting SNR ( Signal to Noise Ratio ) on the larger units. If you end up getting one, let us know what results you get from it. -FuzzyBunny

I acquired a Realtek 2838 USB SDR with the Fitipower FC0013 tuner chip. I have to say... what a piece of excrement. The rf gain is less than half of that available in the Realtek 820 tuner, and station quality, both audio and digital across FM Broadcast and VHF is completely lackluster. I think in this case, the problem is with the tuner chip, as all the other different branded Realtek 2838 USB SDR's with the Realtek 820 tuners seem to perform pretty much the same. I don't have an E4000 tuner chip model to test, but the Fitipower dongle will likely end up at the bottom of a packing box, as I don't even think it is worthwhile to put it in the bottom of a desk drawer. I may end up mailing it to Hak5, if Darren or Shannon are interested in seeing it/having it/playing around with a tuner other than a Realtek 820. Who knows, maybe Evil Server will be able to mind meld with it and get something productive out of it's rather pitiful design. -FuzzyBunny

Well, the "cable"/feed line betwixt the antenna and the card is just a wire, so if you are overly concerned about the frequency precision of the antenna, I could see this as being valid, if the wire were unshielded or unbalanced, or the distances were really long ( like electrical transmission/distribution lines, where line resistance, "skinning effect", and other considerations need to be taken into account to preserve power from unnecessary line loss, but here we are talking about hundreds of miles ( Transmission ) or < 100 miles ( distribution ) of electrical power ). In short wave listening ( almost a dead art form ) using a long unshielded/unbalanced piece of wire is frequently used, even though it isn't tuned to a particular frequency. Also, the longer the wire, the higher you can get your antenna, and in picking up radio broadcasts, the higher the elevation betwixt the top of the antenna and the level of ground is generally almost 100% of the time, a bonus. Radio waves get absorbed by the ground, buildings, ( metal siding ), so the longer the wire/feed line, the more likely you can get both higher and/or closer to the window. Shielded/balanced feed lines are also somewhat different from single conductor antenna wires, so we must be mindful of the difference betwixt these two designs/mediums. Professional radio stations don't use tall towers because they look pretty, they use them because they broadcast the signal over more obstacles ( and because of the power being used ). Short wave broadcasting arrays ( such as Voice of America/US AFRTS faciliities in Westchester, OH ) use many very long, heavy gauge antenna arrays oriented in different directions for their various broadcast destinations ( tuned for the wavelengths they are broadcasting on ). Ham radio operators, who have a choice in the matter, don't use a short feed line to receive from, and a long feed line to broadcast from, they try to get their antenna as high as possible. Generally, the higher the altitude the better, or if indoors, the closer to a window, the better. Obviously, receiving a signal we are dealing with just a small portion of the power we are dealing with when we broadcast, and the signal is already "in the air" from the tall transmission tower, so reception antennas tend to be shorter on portable receivers ( automotive based, or handheld ) as a matter of practicality, not really efficiency. Base stations ( transceivers ) still use long feed lines to their antenna towers, because they perform better at higher altitudes. A difference also exists betwixt receiving a signal at 88 MC/s vs 2.4 GC/s, so it really depends on your environment and the pluses you are trying to get at ( altitude, or proximity to a window ) vs the minus of the length of your antenna feed line ( interference on a long feed line usually comes from EMI/RFI rather than the resistance of the wire or the practicality of having a long antenna ). For your WiFi, you really don't want your signal going too far outside your house ( generally ) as you are trying to not conflict with others' use of the same spectrum space, and avoid them conflicting with yours, ( Part 15 FCC rules ) so the objectives are somewhat different, and the wavelength determines the optimum size of the omni's. When you are attempting to receive distant signals, the objectives and ways to achieve those objectives are completely different. The resistance in your typical copper wire is pretty negligible for the length of spans we are talking about, so having a short feed line isn't going to assist with signal strength as much as having the antenna placed somewhere free of obstacles and as high as possible. Also important is the characteristic properties of the signals we are dealing with, and whether we are depending on bouncing our signal off of the ionosphere ( or some people have bounced their radio transmissions off the moon... ), or whether we are dealing with more of a "short haul" transmission/reception objective, such as FM Broadcast Radio. -FuzzyBunny

These are the specs of the antenna, but I am still testing and comparing it to the base antenna included in the Hak5 kit. I will post my results when I composit more data and observations. The length of the antenna cable also seems to help a bit. ( Ham technical description: long piece of wire ) Although it suggests using it with car/mobile applications, but I have found it functional for base station operations as well. Enhance the signal strength, reception and picture quality - Integrated 25dB low noise amplifier - Magnetic based mounting make DVB-T Antenna be placed much easier - High gain amplifier, ideal for DVB-T Digital Terrestrial TV Receiver - Super easy to install, no drilling required, put it on the car roof or above the - trunk with its magnetic base, fits almost every cars - Portable DVB-T Antenna is removable, therefore, also convenient to set while washing your car and in the three-D parking area - Frequency: VHF (174~230 MHz) & UHF (470-862MHz) - Signal Amplification: approx.25dB - Radiation: Omni - SWR: 1.5:1 (Max.) - Cable length: 195cm -FuzzyBunny

I got the following from usd.dx.com, and I am pleased with the performance boost they provide, although I am judging based upon an ad hoc evaluation of signal strength of FM radio streams. Obviously, no antenna is perfect for every frequency, although the composite dipole antennas seem to provide good performance at wide bandwidth/wide variety of frequencies, but look like a throw back to the TV antennas everyone used in the 70's and basically, before Satellite and cable tv service was the defacto standard. However, the gauge of the wire, and the overall construction of the antenna I bought seems to be a big step up from the antenna included with the dongle, for the frequencies I am looking at. Here are links to the antenna I am playing with: http://usd.dx.com/product/portable-digital-dvb-t-tv-25dbi-omni-magnetic-based-aerial-booster-antenna-iec-901030061#.UydkzfldVOI To connect it to the Realtek dongle from the Hak5 store, you will also need: http://usd.dx.com/product/lwj-023-mcx-male-to-tv-female-antenna-adapter-cable-black-17-5cm-901207418#.UydmkfldVOI The antenna has a nice large base, and is beefier in size than the included antenna in the realtek dongle packs, and it seems to perform well for a general purpose Omni. Oh yes, the base is magnetic, so make sure you don't leave it on those vintage 5 1/4" floppies you have laying around. It, even with the adapter cable, is cheap, and this is usually a consideration for most of us. usd.dx.com also offers free shipping if you are willing to be somewhat patient. Everything you order from them arrives... eventually ( 1 1/2 to 2 weeks delivery is typical ). I almost hate to say it, but there are also Realtek dongles that have the larger antenna connectors built into the dongle, so you don't need the adapter cable if you are using a variant ( from another source ) of the Realtek dongle from the Hak5 store. Maybe the Hak5 store will start offering the other dongles with a more general/larger antenna connector. Signal is everything with radio. So, every connector/adapter you throw into the mix is going to drop signal strength a bit, especially when you drop the gauge of the conductor ( wire ) down. I understand the argument for the Hak5 dongle, you don't need to worry as much about position or it getting in the way of another usb Cable, but I just use a short USB extension cable. Having a cable in betwixt the dongle and the computer is completely different from strangling the signal strength coming into the dongle. Once RF makes it into the dongle, everything is USB/digital out to the port on your computer. Having the radio slightly away from the main body of the computer also has some benefits ( with the Hak5 dongle included in this mix ) as the location of the dongle away from the computer allows the dongle to not be blocked by the body of your computer ( if you are using a desktop ) which can have negative effects, also possible is RF interference from the computer, so my general opinion is the dongle works better off of an USB extension cable, but I use a lot of desktops, because the performance of desktops and the peripherals are in a form factor that makes modifications/maintenance much easier, and Notebooks are designed with battery life as a major consideration, so with less power, comes the consequence of less performance. I use a mix of desktops and laptops/netbooks/android devices, but the smaller form factor devices are mainly used for browsing and SSH or RDP'ing into my other servers/workstations, or other applications where mobility is more useful. My desktops are where I do most of my linux/FreeBSD/Solaris server or development/programming boxes, and my gaming.and Windows 7. One of my netbooks ( Intel Atom ) runs a nice linux distribution specifically designed for it, with a desktop that is oriented towards the smaller screen size. The others run Windows 7. Usually, if I am programming or doing things on the Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris boxes, I use RDP or ssh from a windows 7 box unless I need higher graphics/audio performance, then I do it on directly from the console of the host machine. I used the atom running linux for many years for most of my web browsing before I went to my dual core AMD netbook. The atom runs cooler and longer on the battery, the AMD cranks out the heat, but also has a nice bit of performance and can even limp along in most games. More heat from the computer means more performance. The netbooks are also convenient for working with microcontrollers, as far as programming them. I work with both Pic and Atmel microcontrollers, and a netbook is more appropriate for updating the code, especially when the microcontroller is already deployed in an application. ISP on Atmels pretty much means you need to drag the computer to where the microcontroller is doing its thing. The pics I use are socket oriented, and I can pop them out and drag them back to my Olimex Pic programmer. I don't debate which is better, as far as Pic vs Atmel. It is sort of like Apple vs Windows. I just don't care. I use whatever is best for the project. I have seen some people try to claim that newer computers are more environmentally sensitive, but in my experience, the more heat a computer cranks out, the better the performance. I also used to support data centres, so I have a bit of experience in power consumption, performance, and cooling issues. If you aren't familiar with HVAC/cooling issues with computer servers, you aren't working in a data centre that even qualifies as small scale, or you are running servers in Alaska. I have rambled, and I apologise for some of this, but I have learned so much about computers, electronics, programming, and networking that my mental wiring is partially fried, so consider anything I write as a partial core dump from my main CPU. When I went to school, I was usually kicked out from the computer classes and told to go work in the library on my projects, and just turn in the work at the end of the day, or the end of the quarter. Teachers found my breadth of knowledge to be intimidating, and my social skills to be largely undeveloped. I couldn't help it if I knew more than my teachers, with the exception of my coworker at Heritage College who was the head of the Computer Science department. He is a smart cookie, and was quite enjoyable to collaborate with, as well as learn from. Come to think of it, he was the only computer prof I had that didn't kick me out of his classes. -FuzzyBunny

Just for grins and giggles, I compared the speed of processing in software the demodulation that we do in hardware in a traditional radio. There is a small delay, but I am going to guess that it is on the order of 1/10th to 1/20th of a second betwixt the audio coming out of a traditional radio to the output of an SDR setup with a ~$20 or less dongle. For someone who was brought up on 2 Mhz 48K byte computers, this is just freaking amazing. I remember, for the aforementioned specs of the Atari 800, it took every ounce of processing power, including turning off the video chip (about a 20% boost in performance), and everything the poor little thing had to render a 2-3 second clip of the Kinks "You really got me now", and even then, it was a far cry from broadcast or cd quality audio. In retrospect, I should have forecast some of the capabilities of modern computers and modern networks. Realistically, networks have become part of our computer systems. Without a network to stream information from the web or your video server to your ROKU or XBMC pc, the capabilities of our computational power is very limited. The amount of collaboration and innovation that even the community of Hak5 is able to produce through the web site and the weekly I-casts is nothing short of amazing. People from all over the country, or the world, are able to work together, with only language being a barrier, but increasingly, the web is making the world speak English. This trumps every social influence that people or cultures may claim. They may have localized languages, but the web speaks English, and English's place as a world language is all but guaranteed by computer networks, the Internet, specifically. I realise that TCP/IP cares nothing about the human language it transports, but as the innovation in networks and computer science is mainly a product of the US and our economic allies in Japan, Taiwan, China, and the EU, and RFC's ( the backbone of internet/TCP/IP innovation ) are written and distributed in English, I pretty much see English as being the uber-language of the future. My forefathers/mothers spoke German, Norwegian, English ( British English ), etc., but by the fourth or fifth generation, the only thing that matters is old traditional recipes made on the holidays. The rest of the culture has been absorbed. So will it be with our newest immigrants. So it will be with the world as they get absorbed into the world wide web. Many cultures, such as the Japanese and the Chinese and various Jewish and Moslem countries will always preserve their neighbourhood tongues... But they will also speak English, and speaking in English will become the international standard of communication through the influence of Internet Anarchy. If tracked back far enough, the Roman Empire is still alive and well, but wearing different clothes. It is more of something that we all take for granted. Roads ( arguably, an early network, still important in conjunction with the information network ), indoor plumbing ( arguably, an early crap network, sort of like Facebook ), bridges ( ok, more network analogies... ) our calendar and hours, our numerals, all have Roman origins. This is similar to how I perceive English's role in the future, something taken for granted, that people don't even think about. I hope I have not offended anyone. If I have, please accept my semi humble apologies. I don't intentionally try to offend anyone. It seems, like sarcasm, to be a natural talent I possess. -Fuzzy Bunny

I have found the software to be a little buggy, but it seems we are on the bleeding edge of the development of support for the rtl DVB dongles. In any case, I have found that the definitions in sdr radio version 2 to be a little temperamental. If you have any problems, like with your rfgain knob not working, or no sound at all, go into the radio definitions and delete them, and then recreate them with the scan option (rtl_tcp option), making sure you correct the frequencies, as I get a default of 0-30Mhz quite often, and this is not really all that accurate for the rtl 2383 radios or the 820 tuner. So select better values, double check the port to make sure it is 1234, and then you should be back in business. I expect, as drivers and software evolves for these, that some of the bugginess will be going away, and error recovery should be more prevalent. -FB

God, try administering Solaris and Sun workstations and mainframes for 10 years, AS400's, PDP 11's, Prime Hosts, linux, freebsd, netbsd, HPUX, DOS 2, Seattle DOS, OS/2, CP/M, and MP/M for 20 years previous to that. Consider yourself fortunate. I learned so much, I get PTSD episodes, and have been disabled for 9 years. Not being in the meat grinder of an IT Department has helped my functioning immensely, but I still avoid crowds, people, loud or repetitive noises, etc.. It is possible to learn so much your head explodes, or you have a mild to severe breakdown, chronic insomnia, hallucinations, etc. Enjoy computer and electronic technology and have fun. My best recommendation to anyone is just to have fun doing what you love to do. If you get squeezed too hard, quit. Eventually your doctors will tell you when you are done, as in a fried egg on a sidewalk in Arizona. -Fuzzy Bunny

If anyone needs the user guide for this program, when you start the program, in the select radio dialog, in the lower right corner, is a blue hyperlink ( named, "Users Guide" ) that poops out a pdf user's guide to the program. -FB

Oh, found the rf gain control in the gui, it is under the [Home] tab of the menu bar at the top. RF Gain is set to AGC ( Automatic Gain Control ) by default, but you can change it to any value your dongle supports. It is an icon that looks like a knob, third in from the right, in the box labeled Options ( in the grey bar at the bottom of the box ). Hope that helps. -Fuzzy Bunny

Here is a cool SDR tranceiver almost out in production: To operate on most bands, you would need a ham (FCC) license in the US or an OfCom ( http://www.ofcom.org.uk/ ) license in the UK. It is cool to window shop and gaze at, however. http://ecom.eladit.com/FDM-DUO-1/en Since this box transmits on a wide range of frequencies, unlike the realtek dongles, these can get you in a _LOT_ of trouble if you use them in a band you are not licensed for. -Fuzzy Bunny

According to sdr_tcp, which is running in a terminal/console, the gain mode is set to 0 ( either really 0, or mode 0 means agc automatic gain control? ). When I defined the radio in version two of the software, I just accepted the options for the gain options, which started at 0 and continued with about 15 or so values after that. In order to get intelligible sound, the first task in reviewing an application, I had more of a problem with the bandwidth of the signal it was decoding. That was what I was addressing in the second part of my instructions. Documentation on v2 is a bit on the spotty side. The web site assures me that the info is all here: http://v2.sdr-radio.com/Support/Settings.aspx Somewhere. Probably in the definition of the radio, you can set the gain manually (my best guess) and to get back to that value, you have to stop the software (v2, not rtl_tcp), and then click on select under favorites on the menu bar (positionally it is visually under favorites, you don't click favorites to get there, ie. it isn't a submenu of favorites). There you will see the definition of your rtl_tcp radio, and to the right, are the gain values. Highlight it and select edit to edit your radio definition, and here it appears you can set the gain. There may be another menu/slider to get to it, but that is the best answer I can come up with, having just installed this and gotten this running this evening. Hope that helps, best of luck. Cheers! -Fuzzy Bunny

Oh yes, another useful link for the info behind rtl_tcp: http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr#rtl_tcp -Fuzzy Bunny

I remember Light and Dark Industries advertising and selling pocsag decoders in hardware. I have the schematics in an old issue of an electronics magazine. Unfortunately, the copyright is not yet expired by date, otherwise I would post it. It is actually a really early example of Software Defined Radios. And Apple was founded by guys making blue boxes used to defraud the phone company of long distance charges. But I ramble. -Fuzzy Bunny

My old ham Technician's license text shows a Clark band antenna ( probably 12 feet across ) to pick up satellite transmissions from Skylab and Apollo missions. I expect it won't be too long until SDR's get applied to decoding dish network or direct tv ( K band antennas, I believe ) ( which is illegal in the US, but legal in Canada, since the satt signal from Direct TV is illegal in Canada: that is, the signal is illegal, because Direct TV doesn't have licenses to broadcast into Canada. There is nothing illegal about decoding a direct tv stream in Canada. Many of my friends do, with full diplomatic immunity. ). In any case, this is only speculation on my part, and the standard disclaimer of me advocating people respecting the laws in their respective jurisdictions applies. I should also comment as I have commented elsewhere, that in the interests of safety, if you are using an outdoor antenna, don't leave it unattended and connected. Be mindful of things like lightning storms and k volts or Megavolts flying down your antenna line and into your dongle and computer. A direct hit from lightning is very impressive. I have a neighbour whose house was hit, and UPS, computer, all fried. The warranty of protection on the UPS explicitly excludes lightning strikes, any fires they may cause, etc.. So, just because you have a UPS, don't think you are protected 100% against lightning and please be careful with outdoor antennas. And yes, by all means, have fun as well! -Fuzzy Bunny

I am grateful to the Hak5 crew for bringing these to my attention, and having me salivating over the idea for over a year now, since the badges were given away at various cons. In any case, in the interest of sharing, I came across _Legal_ software, which is always nifty. And this one appears to be quite a power house as far as controlling the dongles and getting something useful out. I haven't tapped all of its potential yet, but you will need sdr_tcp for windows, available here: http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/attachment/wiki/rtl-sdr/RelWithDebInfo.zip And SDRRadio, available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b1kqas6o5ofpdy0/SDR-RADIO-Pro_v2.1b1640.exe (More info at: http://v2.sdr-radio.com/Home.aspx ) In any case, get the rtl_tcp running from the first link, and then configure the radio you install from the second link to point to localhost port 1234 ( 127.0.0.1:1234 ). Don't worry about the serial number of the rtl dongle, it isn't needed. Yes, you can use the network connectivity to connect to one hanging off of a pi, beagle bone, whatever, or your friend in Angola, if he has the server running on an open port. Then, you will have fun setting up the software so you get something more than static and a pretty waterfall. In the Frequency section on the left, click on the direct tab. I used 200khz. This only affects the display, but for some reason seemed to allow me to adjust the radio to 192 khz, in the FM broadcast dialog above it. You can also crank it up to 2 mhz, if you want. 2mhz is probably more useful. Then, on the FM tab, choose fm broadcast, ( stereo if you want ) and click on 192 khz under the options for fm broadcast. At the bottom of your screen, the very bottom, is a freq slider. Slide it to an FM station with a good signal strength (SNR ratio), and you should be in business! The software is licensed in the link I gave you for something like 1 year. After that, who knows what will be happening? In any case, I thought I would share, because I know not everybody loves linux, a lot of people like things to just work, and frequently this means windows ( sorry ). I hope some of you have found this helpful. I think this software really rocks. Literally. Finally something polished to use that I don't have to spend two days compiling. ( I love you GnuRadio, I think. I just haven't learned all of your "features".... ) -Fuzzy Bunny

It does take a little while... ... ... ... For GnuRadio to compile. It has been compiling for 9+ hours cpu time. I guess... eventually... ... ...it will be compiled. -FB

Harumph. Well, I tried a couple of distributions before I retreated and decided to go with Debian over the others that already had more of the heavy lifting already done for me. After one or two hours ( yeah, buddy, right ), I have the kernel source installed, the drivers for the realtek built, the command line rtl_* tools running, etc. The reason I finally ended up on Debian is that I don't like distributions with built in self explosive dates. Debian is an install once, update forever environment. If you want a new window manager, you install it, configure it, and then you can use the new zippee doo da user interface you have chosen, rather than being forced into a new interface because that is the way it is ( Ubuntu 12 <blech> ). To give Ubuntu proper credit, the community has come out with alternate packages and released them as alternate distributions that track the main core Ubuntu distribution, and Ubuntu doesn't seem to get really worked up over it. I even use Kubuntu with the netbook desktop on one of my older boxes ( Intel Atom ). I specifically don't like being tied into most distributions because I find that being forced into an upgrade because security patches are being eliminated for my platform ( like Ubuntu does ) is a sham stunt reminiscent of Microsoft, and probably Apple, I find something I like, and then they change the window manager on the new edition ( Ubuntu, not Debian ), they have changed the window manager to something I loathe. Yes, Kali has a ton of "stuff" in it for hacking, network penetration testing, etc., but I don't necessarily need all of that "stuff" to do what I want to. I can always run it from a live usb or DVD disk if I want to, or evaluate the usefulness of the tools, and install them alongside what I am doing as standalone packages. So, even though some things may take a bit more work in Debian, it is the devil I know. Hell, I am even a contributor to Debain ( the documentation project, in any case ). People may be ahead of me with what they are doing on their zip bang distro of linux, but I am happy doing what I am doing, and most importantly, it will be the easiest for me to maintain and support, and if I want to stay with Gnome, or if I decide to jump to KDE or Xfce, it is all my choice. Granted, many of the steps are already spelled out for me in other's tutorials and such, but I blew a day and a half attempting to get WPA2 to work on my USB wireless adapter, before I realized the adapter didn't support WPA2, and so I had to install another adapter that supports WPA2, and install the firmware and drivers for it into Debian, but that was easier than trying to make a Whale croon like Dean Martin, which is my symbolic representation of attempting to get a non WPA2 adapter to do WPA2. In any case, I am having fun, and I have some more Realtek dongles coming so I don't have to move the one I have betwixt computers. So one will end up being on the Win 7 box, one on the Rasberry Pi, and one on my Debian box. Really, the Pi runs Debian as well... so it is perhaps as accurate to say I will have one on my windows box, and two setup on Debian boxes. Granted, even though the AMD 64 box is really outdated ( it still has PS/2 connectors for mouse and KB <unused> ), it is still 3+ Ghz (one core), and 1 Gig of Ram, which makes it a smidge faster than the Pi box by a few orders of Mips. I also came across an interesting Ham Radio distribution alt to Ubuntu which had a nice package selection included with it, but I will just take the packages I like from the distribution, and install them onto my Debian boxes. I am into bondage, but not software bondage, so I don't want to be stuck with apps that I don't want or need on a bloated distribution of Linux because that is the way it came out of the box. I may leave fooling around with the Realtek radios on FreeBSD or Solaris for another lifetime. -FB

I came across this on the mfr's web site. I have not tested it yet, but plan to give it a go later today. Oops. Posted a link to the software, but apparently it is copyrighted, so to avoid putting anyone's undies in a wad, I edited the message and removed the link. Sorry for the confusion. Admin, please feel free to delete this thread. -Fuzzy Bunny

I am running this software successfully. The only thing I have noticed is that I only see planes taking off, I don't see any landing. Should I be worried and call the FAA and offer to help? -FB

I found a Yagi antenna in the hakshop, which is a directional antenna that will provide gain over what is included with the Realtek SDR kit, but will have limited bandwidth. It is listed as being useful for wifi pineapple, so I expect this is what the target frequency for the design is (2.4Ghz). If you still have a tv aerial hooked up over your place, you have a long periodic dipole array, which, if you are fortunate, is on a rotor controlled in the house. Connecting this into the Realtek may provide interesting results. Since these antennas are useless for the digital standard now in use in the US, quite often people will just about give them away. The only warning I have regarding outside aerial setups connected to SDR's is be careful and disconnect it when you are not using it, or if you know a lightning storm is coming. Having a lightning bolt hit your outdoor aerial and travel into your Realtek and computer would be bad, and in the worst case, would not only fry the Realtek, and the computer, and any equipment (displays) hooked up to the computer, but could cause a fire. Fire and lightning are bad, m'kay? Other than that, have fun. -FB

Coolness. What is so funky is that the antenna book I was reading predated FM, lists everything in kc (kilocycles/second) and was in the era of tubes. Since everything in the book is pre FM, that means the modulation in use is..... You guessed it, Amplitude Modulation. When you start thinking about how fast basic radio technology evolved and spawned FM (the most important advance in radio tech since the invention of radio itself), and from this, TV, the whole computer revolution going from glass based computers like the IBM 650 my mother worked on when she was pregnant with me (I'm only 46), to the technology that we have today, with hand held computer phones (cell phones) that make Kirk's communicator look like a model T, Tablets, Rabbits (a Z80 based C programmable platform that came before the Rainbow Pi's), Roku's, HDTV, laser printers, 3d printers, satellites, microwave, networking and the Internet, well when you start thinking of all the topics I am discussing and how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time, it is nothing short of just flipping A amazing. I mean really, think about the technology they were using when they typeset, on a printing press, the information in my 1938 Antenna Handbook, and that was only 76 years ago, you really develop an appreciation of just how far engineers and yes, hackers, have brought us in the space of time of one lifetime, you develop an appreciation of just how incredibly smart at least one portion of the human race really is. I eagerly look forward to your next episode, and Friday, my Realtek Dongle should be here, so I can start some serious playing/hacking/having an amazing amount of fun. Back on the main topic, an antenna is an antenna. The Hakshop could carry antennas, but it really doesn't make any difference from antennas you get from any other source. An antenna is an antenna. Coupling other antenna designs is pretty much an issue of having the right connectors, cabling, impedance matching, etc.. For both transmitting and receiving improving the design of your antenna by twice will improve your reception by more than improving the radio by double. The antenna is where all the action is in acquiring a basic signal, what you do with it afterwards, well, you can do with SDR or traditional radio technology. The advantage of SDR is you don't have to wire a whole bunch of "stuff" to demodulate, amplify, and render the information present. It also offers a way of visualising the signal in a way that used to cost thousands of dollars, or even further back, was only possible to visualise in the human mind in the days before oscilliscopes, spectrum analyzers, etc. The antenna is where everything starts (in reception) or radiates from (transmission), so focusing on your antenna design is going to reap massive rewards. In radio reception, you can amplify a crappy antenna all you want, but if the received waves aren't on the antenna to begin with, all you will amplify is noise or a lack of signal. Darren seemed to hint that the next Hak5 was going to focus on antenna design (a Yagi?), and so I expect you will see a relatively simple and inexpensive design that will provide massive improvements off of the base antenna that is included with the realtek usb kit. No antenna will provide optimum reception for all wavelengths, as the physics of receiving a waveform always has the possibility that the wave reflected from the edge of the antenna will cancel out the primary wave of interest. Imagine two sine waves 180 degrees out of phase being added together, and if you can visualise this, the result of the two waveforms is zero at all points in time, or no signal. Amplifying zero still equals zero. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with, and what he manages to grab out of thin air.