Category: Amateur Radio

Maverick-603: An Affordable FT8 Receiver with an Open Source RF Chip

The Maverick-603 is a US$149 FT8 receiver based on an open source RF chip design which is capable of acquiring signals between 7 MHz and 70 MHz (technically 1 MHz to 100 MHz). It is currently undergoing Crowd Funding on Crowd Supply with 7 days left in the campaign. Shipping is expected to begin in April 2023.

FT8 is a popular weak signal propagation digital mode used by ham radio enthusiasts. FT8 signals can be received and decoded all over the world even with low transmit power and poor propagation conditions thanks to its highly error tolerant encoding. A dedicated FT8 receiver allows enthusiasts to set up a 24/7 FT8 monitor without dedicating more expensive ham radio equipment to the task. Note that a computing device like a PC or possibly a Raspberry Pi 4 will still be required to run the FT8 decoding software as this is a software defined radio.

The Maverick-603 is based on a custom open source RF chip design made possible by the company eFabless. It is now possible to cheaply design and produce custom ASIC chips (at least at the lower end of the technology scale), replacing more costly FPGA designs. The technical specs of the Maverick-603 are:

  • MCU: ATMEGA1608
  • Power Supply: 3.3 V / 10 mA
  • Operating Frequency Range: 1 to 100 MHz
  • Minimum Signal Strength: -25 dBm
  • Input Antenna Impedance: 50 Ohm
  • Data Interface: SPI
  • Board Size: 2" x 1.75"
  • Capable of receiving FT8 signals
  • 7 - 70 MHZ frequency range
  • Low-power operation (1.8 Volts) means no battery or outlet is required
  • USB Connection
  • A compact surface area
The Maverick-603 FT8 Receiver
The Maverick-603 FT8 Receiver

Internet Archive Seeks Donations of Materials to Build a Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications

In Internet Archive is a non-profit project with the main goal of maintaining a historical archive of the world wide web. Its goal is to preserve human knowledge and culture by creating an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. Readers may be most familiar with their 'wayback machine', that allows users to view websites as they appeared in the past.

As part of this project, the Internet Archive is currently seeking donations of materials including printed medium relating to amateur radio and communications to add to their archives. Their press release and contact details read:

Internet Archive has begun gathering content for the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), which will be a massive online library of materials and collections related to amateur radio and early digital communications. The DLARC is funded by a significant grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), a private foundation, to create a digital library that documents, preserves, and provides open access to the history of this community.

The library will be a free online resource that combines archived digitized print materials, born-digital content, websites, oral histories, personal collections, and other related records and publications. The goals of the DLARC are to document the history of amateur radio and to provide freely available educational resources for researchers, students, and the general public. This innovative project includes:

  • A program to digitize print materials, such as newsletters, journals, books, pamphlets, physical ephemera, and other records from both institutions, groups, and individuals.
  • A digital archiving program to archive, curate, and provide access to “born-digital” materials, such as digital photos, websites, videos, and podcasts.
  • A personal archiving campaign to ensure the preservation and future access of both print and digital archives of notable individuals and stakeholders in the amateur radio community.
  • Conducting oral history interviews with key members of the community. 
  • Preservation of all physical and print collections donated to the Internet Archive.

The DLARC project is looking for partners and contributors with troves of ham radio, amateur radio, and early digital communications related books, magazines, documents, catalogs, manuals, videos, software, personal archives, and other historical records collections, no matter how big or small. In addition to physical material to digitize, we are looking for podcasts, newsletters, video channels, and other digital content that can enrich the DLARC collections. Internet Archive will work directly with groups, publishers, clubs, individuals, and others to ensure the archiving and perpetual access of contributed collections, their physical preservation, their digitization, and their online availability and promotion for use in research, education, and historical documentation. All collections in this digital library will be universally accessible to any user and there will be a customized access and discovery portal with special features for research and educational uses.

We are extremely grateful to ARDC for funding this project and are very excited to work with this community to explore a multi-format digital library that documents and ensures access to the history of a specific, noteworthy community. Anyone with material to contribute to the DLARC library, questions about the project, or interest in similar digital library building projects for other professional communities, please contact:

Kay Savetz, K6KJN
Program Manager, Special Collections
[email protected]
Twitter: @KaySavetz 

Radio Jove Spectrograph Hardware and Software

NASA's Radio Jove is a project that enables students and amateur scientists from around the world to observe and analyze the HF radio emissions from Jupiter, our Sun and our galaxy using easy to construct HF radio telescopes that receive spectrographs from 16-24 MHz. The project has existed for more than two decades, and these days the telescope builds mostly make use of low cost software defined radios.

In a presentation for the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) Richard Flagg & Jim Sky talk about what sort of hardware is used these days for the Radio Jove project. They note that SDRs like the Softrock, Funcube Dongle Pro+, SDR-IQ, SDR-14, RTL-SDR, and RASDR have been used. They go on to discuss some of the spectrograph logging software that is used with the project as well.

The presentation slides in PDF form can be found here.

Richard Flagg & Jim Sky: Radio Jove Spectrograph Hardware and Software (RJ10/11)

Open Source Military TAK Android App Supports RTL-SDR ADS-B Tracking

ATAK (Android Tactical Assault Kit) is an Android app used by some branches of the US military for visualizing geospatial information such as enemy and friendly positions, as well as any other information of interest. The civilian version of ATAK (CivTAK) was recently open sourced in 2020 and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.

The software has a huge number of features for coordinating teams, planning operations and visualizing information. It can even network via handheld, or ham radios or a Meshtastic LoRa network if a central server and internet connection is unavailable. Of note is that their plugin page references the possibility of using a plugin that uses RTL-SDR hardware for ADS-B aircraft tracking. However, it appears that the plugin needs to be purchased from tak.gov. We suspect that in the future there will be more RTL-SDR compatible plugins available.

[First seen on Hackaday]

ATAK on an Android Device

Video on Receiving HF Signals with the RTL-SDR Blog V3

Over on YouTube TheSmokinApe has uploaded a video showing how to use the direct sampling mode on RTL-SDR Blog V3 devices to receive HF transmissions, such as the ham bands, short wave and AM broadcast. In the video he shows how to activate direct sampling mode in SDR#, and then goes on to show reception of a few HF signals.

We note that an appropriate HF capable antenna is required to receive HF signals. The multipurpose dipole kits we sell are for VHF/UHF reception only. A simple and low cost HF antenna could just be a long wire running through your house.

HF Ham Radio with RTL-SDR Made EASY!

SignalsEverywhere: Playing Classic Games over Amateur Radio with NPR-70 TCP/IP Modems

Over on her YouTube channel SignalsEverywhere, Sarah has uploaded a new video that shows us how TCP/IP connections can be made over the amateur radio spectrum using low cost NPR-70 TCP/IP modems that operate in the 70cm amateur band at around 433 MHz.

With a TCP/IP connection available it is then possible to play games over the amateur radio bands and Sarah demonstrates this in action with some classic games like Unreal Tournament 2004, noting that the ping was about 225ms. She notes that she used a lower symbol rate to keep within the legal limits within the USA, however in other regions a higher symbol rate may be possible, resulting in better ping. She goes on to try a strategy game called OpenRA which is a bit more suited to running on low speed high latency networks, noting that the radio TCP/IP connection worked very well.

In the video Sarah also shows what the modem signal looks like on the spectrum and waterfall using SDR++.

Playing Classic Games over Amateur Radio | NPR-70 Modem TCP/IP Unreal Tournament and OpenRA

New York Times Story on Intercepted Russian Forces Radio Communications

The New York Times have recently run an incredible video story about how Russian radio communications are being intercepted and recorded by ham radio operators and open source radio monitoring hobbyists in Ukraine. Some of the communications reveal the extent of the logistical issues experienced by the invading forces, and perhaps have even recorded evidence for war crimes.

It appears that much of the invading Russian forces use simple unencrypted analogue voice over HF channels that can be intercepted and recorded by anyone with an HF software defined radio, or anyone willing to monitor nearby web-based SDRs like KiwiSDRs and WebSDRs. In the video screenshots of recordings played back in SDR# and various WebSDRs are displayed.

The story focuses mostly on the audio recordings that highlight communications between Russian forces discussing attack plans, including plans to bombard residential areas with artillery. These recordings are cross-referenced with reports and videos of actual tank sightings and destruction in the areas discussed on the radio.

A later recording highlights communications from a distressed Russian vehicle under attack, requests for air support being unfulfilled, and urgent requests for supplies like fuel, food and water. 

Russia Struggled to Capture a Ukrainian Town. Intercepted Radio Messages Show Why.

Some of the monitoring projects involved are highlighted in the story and they include, Project Owl, Ukrainian Radio Watchers, ShadowBreak and NSRIC (Number Stations Research and Information Center). We are also aware of at least one other organization attempting to record communications within Ukraine as well that may be making use of RTL-SDRs, HackRFs and other SDRs.

Radio Related News Occurring in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

In the current Russia-Ukraine conflict we've seen several noteworthy radio related events occurring over the last few days, mostly throughout Twitter.

Russian HF Bomber Communications

As mentioned in the previous post it has been found that since the start of the invasion, Russian Strategic bombers have been very active on USB voice at 8131 kHz. We've even seen a security firm predict air raid siren activations based on increased bomber HF activity. 

Russian Military HF Frequencies Jammed by Activists

It has been observed that several Russian military HF stations including the famous UVB-76 Buzzer have been jammed with either the Ukrainian national anthem, or various meme-type songs. It is likely that these stations are being jammed mostly by civilian activists, or members of the activist hacker collective known as Anonymous, rather than any military organization.

The UVB-76 Buzzer is a famous and mysterious numbers station that plays a buzzing sound and sometimes voice. It can be received from all over the world. Via civilian investigations, and through the use of the KiwiSDR TDoA direction finding functionality, it has been found to be transmitted from a location just north of St. Petersburg, and is assumed to be a military signal of some sort.

We've also seen waterfall text based jamming:

Using KiwiSDRs you can listen to these jammed stations yourself remotely through public internet connected SDRs in Europe. Some known frequencies are listed here and here. 

We note that there have also been reports about fake Russian frequencies being posted on the internet.

We assume most jamming is happening from outside the warring countries, and it is unknown how far the jamming signals extend onto Russian or Ukrainian territory, or how much of an impact they are having on Russian operations.

Russian State TV Hacked

Twitter account Anonymous TV has reported hacking Russian state TV to show citizens what is actually happening in Ukraine. It's unknown if this was a hack via TV transmissions being overpowered by another signal, or a computer hack.

Starlink Activated in Ukraine

A few days ago Elon Musk and SpaceX activated their Starlink wireless satellite internet system in Ukraine, and have sent over a shipment of ground terminals. This is useful as even if the local wired internet were to be destroyed, or be censored by Russia, the Starlink system will be able to connect to uncensored internet as long as there is power. 

An account of a Ukrainian engineer and RF hobbyist recently Tweeted his success at getting his Starlink system up and running from his home in Ukraine. We decided not to link to his Twitter account in this post, just in case he needs to delete his account for safety in the future as he appears to be very close to the bombing.

Viasat Satellite Service Experiences Cyberattack and Outages

Viasat, another provider of satellite internet services in Ukraine region appears to have been subject to a DDOS cyberattack, causing outages to it's satellite internet service in the European region.

SSTV Activism Seen On Russian Meridian Satellites

Meridian satellites are a "family of telecommunications satellites for civil and military use developed by Russia in the 2000s placed in a Molniya Orbit" (Wikipedia). A tweet by Scott Tilley @coastal8049 has noted that they have seen reports of SSTV activist activity occurring on the 484 MHz Meridian transponders. 

Scott Tilleys Twitter feed also shows some interesting other pieces of news and information, including frequencies and orbits of Meridian satellites, images of a destroyed Russian command and control satellite communications vehicle, and links to now deleted, but Google cached pages with information about Russian satellite communication systems.

APRS Activism against Russia causes APRS-IS DDOS

Amateur radio operators can use a system called APRS to communicate with text and packet data globally through internet connected radio repeaters. A few days ago it appears that anti-Russia activists flooded the APRS-IS (Automatic Packet Reporting System-Internet Service) system with bogus packets targeting Russian coordinates, which unintentionally resulted in a denial of service (DOS) event on APRS trackers like aprs.fi. 

DARC Urges Safety First for Ukraine and Foreign Amateur Radio Hobbyists

The German ham-radio association known as DARC has issued a warning to Ukrainian hams, and to foreign hams who may receive from them. Amateur radio operations are currently banned in Ukraine due to wartime laws.

Poland Amateur Radio Society Provides WinLink HF Email Service

In response to geopolitical threats, the Poland Amateur Radio Society has set up a HF WinLink email system, aimed at provided email services to amateur radio operators that could be cutoff from internet email services. It appears this may be aimed at helping Ukrainians communicate, however in these modern days of electronic warfare, it is important to take into account the warning from DARC above too as transmitting stations could easily be located by Russian electronic warfare forces.

Dear HAM operators, in the face of the latest threats in our region and a possibility of an incoming wave of refugees, with over 2 mln already living in Poland, we would like to remind you that we are at your disposal.

If you are a licensed amateur radio operator, you can send information by e-mail to your relatives in Poland or Emergency Services with via the Winlink system, which works on HF bands, independently of access to the local ICT infrastructure https://winlink.org/WinlinkExpress.

We advise you to download the software, install it and check its operation.
Polish WinLink nodes are QRV on 160,80,20m
SR5WLK dial frequency 3595,5 kHz USB
SR3WLK dial requency 14111 kHz USB
SP3IEW dial frequency 1865 kHz USB

If we receive information about the cut-off of the Internet in the region in danger, we will be QRV daily as SP0MASR @ 18-20 UTC on the frequencies 3770 kHz +/- QRM, 7110 kHz +/- QRM. In such a situation, please communicate in Polish or English.

We are here to serve you.

Shortwave Listening Updates

The excellent SWLing.com blog has also provided some updates on shortwave, including news that WRMI have resumed broadcasts of Radio Ukraine International, Ukrainian state radio resumes broadcasting at 549 kHz, and that the BBC adds to new broadcasts to Ukraine.

Russian Oligarch Jets Tracked with ADS-B

An activist has set up a Twitter account to track the private jets of Russian Oligarch's via ADS-B. ADS-B aircraft data can be used to track aircraft locations, and these signals are typically received with low cost SDRs like RTL-SDRs. The project appears to use data sourced from adsbexchange.com which is known to be one of the only ADS-B aggrators that does not censor data.

The 7055 kHz 'Radio War' Frequency Sees Increase in Activity

In has been reported that the 7055 kHz LSB amateur radio frequency has been used by Ukrainian and Russian amateur radio operators for some time now to insult each other in a 'radio war', and recently activity has significantly increased. Other frequencies involved include 7050 kHz LSB and 3731 kHz.

Captured Equipment Shows Russian Radio Hardware In Use

A recent tweet shows a photo of hardware supposedly captured from Russian forces. Of interested is a Russian R-187PI Azart, a handheld digital software defined radio.

At the same time unconfirmed reports suggest that some parts of the Russian army may be relying on civilian Baofeng radios.