Taylor Swift Threatens Legal Action Against Owner of X Account that Tracks her Private Jet via ADS-B

Jack Sweeney is a student who operates various social media and websites dedicated to tracking the private jets of celebrities and notable persons. In the past he's drawn the ire of Elon Musk who banned his @ElonJet account in 2022 which used to provide live updates on the location of Elon Musk's private jet. These days he operates the @ElonJetNextDay account which tracks Elon's jet with a 24 hour delay on X, but continues to track the jet live on other platforms.

Recently the legal team for global superstar Taylor Swift threatened legal action against Jack Sweeney for running the various social media accounts that track her private jet including @SwiftJetNextDay on X with a 24 hour delay, or live on alternative platforms like Mastodon. Swift's legal team claim Sweeney's live tracking accounts pose an “imminent threat to the safety and wellbeing” of Swift.

Jack notes that he makes use of legal live ADS-B flight data from public data aggregators like Airplanes.live and AirFramesIO. ADS-B data is most commonly provided from contributors with RTL-SDR dongles running on Raspberry Pi single board computers. 

Even without Sweeney's social media accounts anyone can legally look up this live public flight data data, or even receive it themselves directly from the aircraft if they are close enough. Although a point can be argued that the social media accounts run by Sweeney make it significantly easier for this information to be obtained and shared by anyone.

An example notification from @SwiftJetNextDay for Taylor Swift's private jet flight.
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FOSDEM 2024 Videos now Available: Synthetic Aperture WiFi RADAR, GPU DSP Acceleration and more

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developer’s Meeting) is a yearly conference that took place in Brussels, Belgium on 3 - 4 February 2024. This conference featured a room on Software Defined Radio and Amateur Radio.

Recently the videos of most the talks have been uploaded to their website. Some interesting talks include:

Covert Ground Based Synthetic Aperture RADAR using a WiFi emitter and SDR receiver

Link to Talk Page

Using a WiFi emitter as radiofrequency source illuminating a scene under investigation for slow movement (e.g. landslides), a Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture RADAR (GB-SAR) is assembled using commercial, off the shelf hardware. The dual-channel coherent Software Defined Radio (SDR) receiver records the non-cooperative emitter signal as well as the signal received by a surveillance antenna facing the scene. Spatial diversity for azimuth mapping using direction of arrival measurement is achieved by moving the transmitter and receiver setup on a rail along a meter-long path -- the longer the better the azimuth resolution -- with quarter wavelength steps. The fully embedded application runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 single board computer executing GNU Radio on a Buildroot-generated GNU/Linux operating system. All development files are available at https://github.com/jmfriedt/SDR-GB-SAR/

Synthetic Aperture RADAR with WiFi and USRP SDR

Using GPU for real-time SDR Signal processing

Link to Talk Page

GPU processors have become essential for image or AI processing. Can they bring anything to real-time signal processing for SDR applications? The answer is yes, of course, but not all classic algorithms (FIR, DDC, etc.) can be used "as is", sometimes a different approach must be taken. In this presentation, I will share the solutions that I implemented to achieve multi-channel DDC on NVIDIA Jetson GPU and will make a comparison with "classic CPU" approaches.

Using GPU's for Real Time Signal Processing

Maia SDR: an open-source FPGA-based project for AD936x+Zynq radios

Link to Talk Page

Maia SDR is an open-source project with the main goal of promoting FPGA development for SDR and increasing the collaboration between the open-source SDR and FPGA communities. Currently it provides a firmware image for the ADALM Pluto and other radios based on the AD936x and Zynq. This firmware can display a real-time waterfall at up to 61.44 Msps in a WebSDR-like interface using WebGL2 rendering, and record IQ data in SigMF format in the SDR DDR. The FPGA design is implemented in Amaranth, an Python-based HDL, and the software stack is implemented in Rust, targetting the embedded ARM CPU and WebAssembly.

The first firmware version was released in February 2023, and the project was presented in June in the Software Defined Radio Academy. In this talk we cover the progress since the summer, including the addition of support for devices such as the Pluto+ and AntSDR. We focus on the technical details of the project and the possibilities for re-using some of the components in other projects.

Maia SDR

DAPNET: Bringing pagers back to the 21st Century

Link to Talk Page

When talking about pagers, most of us will think about an object of the past, often seen in TV shows from the 90s, used by medical staff and businessmen. However, they're an interesting way to get simple data broadcast over amateur radio frequencies, with receivers that can be built for less than 20€. We'll explore this and understand how an extensive network can be deployed with simple equipment and using open source hardware and software.

DAPNET Talk
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Tech Minds: A Review of the SDRplay RSP1B and SDRConnect Preview 2 Demonstration

A few days ago we posted about the recent release of the SDRplay RSP1B software defined radio, which is an upgrade over the previous RSP1A model. The changes include a new steel enclosure, significantly improved noise performance under 1 MHz and in the 50 - 60 MHz region, noticeable noise improvements in the 3.5 - 5.5 MHz and 250 - 320 MHz range, and improved signal handling at HF frequencies.

Over on the Tech Minds YouTube channel, Matt has released a video testing the new RSP1B. He notes that thanks to the improved noise performance under 1 MHz, reception of NDB's from airports is significantly better.

Matt also tests SDRConnect Preview 2 which is SDRplay's new multiplatform receiver software. It is currently in 'preview', so features are still being added, and there may be bugs. In the video Matt shows a few of the new features in SDRConnect Preview 2 including band selection buttons, IQ recorder, asymmetrical, notch filtering and the remote server feature which allows SDRplay devices to be used over a network or internet connection.

The NEW RSP1B SDR Receiver From SDRPlay

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A KrakenSDR to TAK Interface Converter

Thank you to RTL-SDR.COM reader Aaron, who recently found a Kraken-to-TAK converter made by "SignalMedic" and "dngrssgnls" which converts the KrakenSDR bearing output data to "Cursor on Target" (COT) or XML format, allowing common TAK interfaces to read and display the data. Currently the converter allows a line of bearing to be displayed in a TAK app, with arbitrary length. The converter consists of a single json file for Node Red. The GitHub readme reads:

Convert data from a Kraken SDR to TAK endpoints

The software will parse information collected by Kraken, convert to COT and XML and send to common TAK interfaces. The length of the line is arbitrary. The line is 6km long, but has no correlation besides bearing to the transmitter. Intersecting bearing lines are necessary for determining the geolocation of a transmitter.

Planned improvements include:

  • Button for persisting the current line and generating a new UID
  • Work on filtering out by DOA Angle node
  • Dashboard for easier updating of Kraken and TAK endpoints
  • Simplified deployment

We note that most TAK apps may be a little limited for direction finding purposes as they cannot calculate bearing intersections over time, or calculate a bearing grid like the KrakenSDR Android app, and KrakenSDR online web mapper does. However, often a single line of bearing is enough information, especially if there are multiple distributed units contributing bearing data.

If you weren't already aware, KrakenSDR is our 5-channel coherent radio based on RTL-SDRs, and it can be used for applications like radio direction finding. It can be purchased on Crowd Supply.

TAK (Tactical Assault Kit) is software used by the military and other organizations for visualizing geospatial information such as enemy and friendly positions. Civilian versions of TAK also exist, such as ATAK for Android. Previously we posted about how ATAK has the ability to plot aircraft positions via an RTL-SDR receiving ADS-B.

KrakenSDR bearing data displayed on a TAK app.
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SDRplay Launches the RSP1B

SDRplay, a manufacturer of popular low cost software defined radio devices have just launched their "RSP1B" model. This is a refresh of their popular lowest price model, the RSP1A. The changes include a new steel enclosure, significantly improved noise performance under 1 MHz and in the  50 - 60 MHz region, noticeable noise improvements in the 3.5 - 5.5 MHz and 250 - 320 MHz range, and improved signal handling at HF frequencies.

The RSP1A remains for sale at US$117 + shipping, and the new RSP1B sells for US$132.25 + shipping.

SDRplay introduces the RSP1B SDR receiver

Their press release reads:

SDRplay Limited is announcing the launch of a new Software Defined Radio receiver product – the RSP1B. The RSP1B is an enhanced version of the popular RSP1A powerful wideband full featured 14-bit SDR which covers the RF spectrum from 1kHz to 2GHz. The RSP1B comes in a rugged black painted steel case and has significantly improved noise performance. All it needs is a computer and an antenna to provide excellent communications receiver functionality. It comes with a choice of SDRunoTM for Windows and multiplatform SDRconnect (TM) SDR software for Windows, MacOS and Linux (supplied free of charge by SDRplay). It allows users to monitor up to 10MHz of spectrum at a time. A documented API allows developers to create new demodulators or applications around the platform.

The RSP1B has the following additional benefits compared to our lowest cost device, the RSP1A:

  1. It is housed in a strong black painted steel case.
  2. It has significantly improved noise performance below 1MHz (i.e. for MF, LF and below), and in the 50-60
    MHz region. There are also noticeable noise improvements in the 3.5-5.5MHz and 250-320MHz spectrum.
  3. It has improved signal handling at HF frequencies.

For more information, please go to www.sdrplay.com/RSP1B

As is the case for the other RSP family members, SDRplay will work with the developers of the popular third party SDR receiver software packages to maximise compatibility. SDRplay will also provide multiplatform driver and API support which includes Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and Raspberry Pi.

The RSP1B is available to purchase direct from SDRplay or from SDRplay’s authorised resellers where it is expected to retail at approximately £106 GBP or $133 USD (excluding taxes or shipping). A list of SDRplay’s authorised resellers can be found at www.sdrplay.com/distributors/

For more information visit the SDRplay website on www.sdrplay.com

About SDRplay:

SDRplay limited is a registered UK company, with registered offices in the UK and Ireland.

UK: SDRplay Limited, 21 Lenten Street, ALTON, Hampshire, GU34 1HG, UK, Registered Number: 09035244

Ireland: The Black Church, St Mary’s Place, Co. Dublin, D07 P4AX, Ireland, Registered Number: 3591295EH

Correspondence Address: PO Box 1180, Princes Risborough, HP22 9TD, United Kingdom

Contact email: [email protected]

The SDRplay RSP1B
The SDRplay RSP1B
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Multiple Comprehensive Tutorials on Weather Satellite Decoding

Over on his website "Jacopo's Lair" IU1QPR (@original_lego11) who is also a developer for SatDump has written up many tutorials about weather satellite decoding that involve the use of SatDump. SatDump is a popular piece of software often used with RTL-SDRs and other low cost SDRs for decoding weather satellite images.

With a small satellite dish, feed, RTL-SDR and LNA+filter and the SatDump software it's possible and download beautiful images of the earth from many geostationary and polar orbiting weather satellites. We note that we are currently taking pre-orders on Crowd Supply for our Discovery Dish system, which is low cost hardware designed to help users get started with weather satellite reception.

Over on Reddit IU1QPR has created a listed summary of all the tutorials he's written. These are currently the most up to date and comprehensive tutorials that we have found on this topic. The tutorials cover everything from what satellites are available, what dish sizes you need, what SDRs can be used, what LNA+filter and other hardware you need, and how to use the SatDump software.

Satellite reception and decoding

Automated stations

SatDump usage

All have been moved to SatDump's documentation page

Satellite data processing and usage

From the HRPT tutorial: What various HRPT signals look like on the spectrum.
From IU1QPR's HRPT tutorial: What various HRPT signals look like on the spectrum.
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SDR++ Android APK now supports the RTL-SDR Blog V4

Thank you to SDR++ developer Ryzerth who has let us know that RTL-SDR Blog V4 support has recently been added to the nightly build of the APK. With this release, Android is now fully supported by the RTL-SDR Blog V4 via Martin Marinov's SDR Driver app (which many SDR applications connect to), SDRAngel and now SDR++.

A reminder: With SDR++ you may find that you will need to close (using the task manager on Android) and reopen the app a couple of times before it will detect an RTL-SDR dongle. 

If you enjoy SDR++ please consider supporting the developer on Patreon.

Blog V4 Receiving Broadcast FM on Android with SDR++
Blog V4 Receiving Broadcast FM on Android with SDR++
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A Tribute to Amateur Radio Astronomer Job Geheniau (Job’s Radio Telescope)

Job Geheniau was someone whose amateur radio astronomy projects were often featured on RTL-SDR Blog (often referred to as Job's Radio Telescope). It with great sadness that we have recently learned that Job Geheniau passed away from cancer in late December 2023. We would like to take the time share this post to highlight some of his achievements in the amateur radio astronomy field.

Back in 2020 Job first surprised us with one of his first radio astronomy results (Part 1, Part 2) where he was able to image the Milky Way in neutral hydrogen by using a 150cm dish, RTL-SDR, LNA and motorized mount. Over eight nights he recorded hydrogen line readings throughout the Milky Way and ended up creating a 2D Excel sheet that showed an image of the Milky Way at the 1420 MHz hydrogen line frequency. 

Job would go on, rapidly evolving and each time showing us that low cost hardware set up in a backyard could be used to unlock many of the secrets of the universe. Using a satellite dishes less than two meters in diameter, RTL-SDRs, LNAs and filters he was able to:

Job's Radio Astronomy website remains up at https://jgeheniau.wixsite.com/radio-astronomy, and many results and writeups of his other experiments can be found there. We will sorely miss posting about Job's achievements, but we hope that his life has inspired you to take a closer look at the amateur radio astronomy hobby.

A tribute to Job will also be published in the next membership journal from the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers.

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