Category: Applications

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!

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

Testing the Mayhem Firmware on a HackRF Portapack

The Portapack is an add on for the popular HackRF SDR which allows the HackRF to be used portably without a PC. Recently the cost of this hardware duo has come down to below US$150 due to low cost Chinese clones now being available on the market. Generally the clones are of good quality too.

Once you have the hardware it is possible to install third party custom firmware such as "Mayhem" on the Portapack which enables many features such as the ability to receive and transmit various different types of RF protocols. Back in 2018 we did a review of Mayhems predecessor which was known as the "Havok" firmware. More recently Tech Minds did a video overview of Mayhem.

Now over on his blog A. Petazzoni has started a new blog series which aims to introduce the basics of the Mayhem firmware, including installation and some hands on testing with RF spoofing, denial-of-service (DoS) and replay attacks. Currently only his first post is out, and in the post he show how to install Mayhem onto the Portapack, then goes on to briefly overview some applications such as RF replay attacks, replicating wireless remote controls, receiving and transmitting POCSAG, receiving and transmitting ADS-B, and creating a jammer.

Obviously a lot of what you can do with a Portapack and the Mayhem firmware is extremely illegal and very dangerous, so please do be careful with what and where you transmit especially if you are new to RF hobby. These signals should remain in your test area only, and not leak out into the wider environment.

[Also seen on Hackaday]

HackRF Portapack transmitting a spoofed pager message.

New SDRUno Plugin Video Demos: Frequency Annotation, WEFAX, SSTV, DXToolbox

Earlier this year SDRplay updated their SDRuno software to have plugin functionality. This allows third party programmers to implement their own decoders and software which interfaces with SDRuno directly. Recently we've seen some new plugins become public, and in one of their recent blog posts, SDRplay highlights a few new ones.

SDRplay writes the following about three demonstration videos:

The first shows the latest version of FRAN – a FRequency ANnotation programme, developed by Eric Cottrell – it can read SWSKEDS or .s1b memory bank files and display the active stations from the files on the main spectrum window. This is an example of a Community Plugin

Quick Look at the FRAN Plugin (VID558)

FRAN complements the DX Cluster demo plugin provided by SDRplay. This programme displays DX cluster callsigns on the SDRuno spectrum display. A DX cluster is a network of computers, each running a software package dedicated to gathering, and disseminating, information on amateur radio DX activities. With this plugin you can overlay the DX cluster callsigns as they pop up. There’s a choice of how long you let them display and you can control the way in which they appear. Here we show it successfully tuning in to a US station flagged by the cluster. (The receiver was in the UK):

Quick Look at the DXcluster Plugin (VID560)

Finally there’s this new video showing the new plugin for interfacing the software suite from Black Cat Systems to SDRuno enabling DXToolbox, HF WEFAX and Slow Scan TV decodes:

Quick Look at the Black Cat Systems plugin

Black Cat Systems has a range of software available – more information can be found at: https://blackcatsystems.com/ For more about the SDRuno plugin system for both users and potential developers, go to https://www.sdrplay.com/plugins/

Simple DMR Plugin for SDR# Now Available

Vasili from rtl-sdr.ru has recently released a simple DMR decoder plugin for SDR# to go along with his simple dPMR and TETRA decoders that we posted about earlier.

Simple DMR decoder. No external dependencies, no settings, uses SDR # audio path. Designed for listening to unencrypted DMR channels. The voice from both slots is mixed into one channel.

To install the plugin simply copy the dll's from the zip file into the SDR# folder, then copy the line from the magline.txt text file into the plugins.xml file which can be opened with any text editor.

Simple DMR Decoder Plugin for SDR#

Job’s Radio Telescope: Hydrogen Line Northern Sky Survey with RTL-SDR

We've posted about Job Geheniau's RTL-SDR radio telescope a few times in the past [1] [2] [3], and every time his results improve. This time is no exception as he's created his highest resolution radio image of the Milky Way to date. We have uploaded his PDF file explaining the project here.

Job used the same hardware as his previous measurements, a 1.5 meter dish, with 2x LNA's, a band pass filter and an RTL-SDR. Over 72 days he used the drift scan technique to collect data in 5 degree increments. The result is a map of our Milky Way galaxy at the neutral Hydrogen frequency of 1420.405 MHz.

JRT - Northern sky Hydrogen Line Survey with RTL-SDR

This image is quite comparable to an image shown in a previous post which was created by Marcus Leech from CCERA who used a 1.8m dish and Airspy.

If you're interested in exploring our Galaxy with an RTL-SDR via Hydrogen Line reception, we have a simple tutorial available here. The ideas presented in the tutorial could be adapted to create an image similar to the above, although with lower resolution.