Yearly Archives: 2017

North Korea: Information Gathering in the World’s Most Restrictive Nation

If you’ve been an SWLing Post reader for long, you’ll have “met” him virtually; if you’ve been in attendance the Winter SWL Fest recently, you’ll recognize him, may have heard him speak, and perhaps even have met him in person. I’m speaking, of course, of my good friend, Post contributor, and fellow radio listener, Mark Fahey.

What you might not know about Mark, an intrepid Aussie and mediahound of remarkable facility and clarity, is that he has spent many years (and significant personal resources) compiling a fascinating and invaluable multi-media project in the form of an iBook he’s titled Behind The Curtain, which allows outsiders a frank view directly into North Korean propaganda.

What’s astounding is that this view is from within North Korea: Mark, having traveled to North Korea numerous times (until he made his research public, that is, thus limiting his re-entry), successfully rips back North Korea’s curtain of self-image to reveal, in all its stultified glory, the inner workings––and failings––of the”Hermit Kingdom.”

He’s now very near to publishing Behind The Curtain, and he’s making available the iBook––as well as all of the media and research he’s curated––for free.

HOPE X

During the summer of 2014 Mark ventured to New York City to present his research at HOPE X (Hackers On Planet Earth). Yesterday, I rediscovered the video of Mark’s presentation at HOPE X on YouTube. If you’re interested in North Korea, propaganda, number stations, SDRs, and/or anthropology of any stripe, you’ll certainly enjoy this presentation, which is truly like no other:

Click here to view on YouTube.

Intrigued? So am I!

Behind The Curtain doesn’t yet have a formal release date, but stay tuned to the Post for details about its availability, as well as any other presentations or projects on this (or any other subject!) by Mark.

Download Behind The Curtain from the Apple store by clicking here.

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SDRplay releases SDRuno version 1.13

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SDRuno running the RSP2.

(Source: Jon Hudson, SDRplay)

SDRplay has just released SDRuno version 1.13 which adds the much requested ‘IF Out’ facility for Panadapter use. It also includes the following updates:

Bug Fixes

Fixed RSP2 IF AGC/gain slider display issues

Updates

Added IF Output mode for transceivers

Added 250 Hz to frequency step size list

Default page in the settings panels is now the left most page each time SDRuno is started

Added RSP2 IF GR/Gain value

Added Factory Reset in the Main Window OPT menu (1st Instance only)

Improved power function error handling

Added support for Sub Modes, Filter BW and Port Selction in the Memory Panel

Changed RDS window colour scheme to match other windows

Added new hotkeys ‘v’, ‘-‘ and ‘+’ which are for VFO, Out and In zoom buttons in the SP1 window

Hotkey ‘b’ now opens AND closes the memory panel

Changed the default sync Rig->VRX setting to true

API – RefClk o/p no longer stops when the master RSP2 stops streaming

To get this latest version, go to: http://www.sdrplay.com/downloads/

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Buyer Beware: Insane RTL-SDR pricing

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$300 is an absurd price for this RTL-SDR package.

This morning, while browsing eBay, I noticed a high-production retailer selling an RTL-SDR package for $300 US! (To add insult to injury, this isn’t even the latest version of the RTL-SDR dongle!)

I post this warning message to those who are new to the world of the RTL-SDR.

You should never pay more than $30 US shipped for the latest version of the RTL-SDR dongle unless you’re buying custom enclosures, filtering, etc. In fact, the RTL-SDR package above retails for about $25 shipped via Amazon (though currently out of stock). The RTL-SDR stick alone retails for $20.95 shipped. You can find a number of models between $10-20 on Amazon and eBay.

The majority of eBay sellers list the RTL-SDR at the proper market price.

The allure of the RTL-SDR is its affordability–don’t fall for sellers on eBay, Amazon or elsewhere who list these at outrageous prices. They’re simply trying to rip you off.

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Resistance Radio: “The Man in the High Castle” promotion

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Over the past two years, I’ve enjoyed the Amazon.com series, “The Man In The High Castle“–a dystopian TV series which explores a world where WWII ended with a very different outcome. This series is based on a 1962 book by Philip K. Dick.

As a promotion, Amazon recently created a virtual radio called “Resistance Radio” where the listener can pretend to be a part of this dystopia and tune in pirate broadcasts from the resistance movement.

It’s a fun virtual radio and the creators took some care in making it feel authentic. It’s reminiscent of a 1960s era Grundig or Telefunken.

The tuning knob, volume and memory push buttons all work. If you turn the receiver off for a while, it takes a few seconds for the audio to increase as the tubes warm up. It even has a red tuning indicator lamp. Between stations you’ll hear static, though it sounds a bit manufactured to us radio enthusiasts.

And, oh yeah, you’ll even numbers stations and Morse Code as you tune across the band.

Obviously, someone behind the virtual radio is a proper radio geek.

Someone needs to make a web-based virtual radio interface like this for TuneIn radio.

Update: SWLing Post contributor, David Cripe (NM0S) notes, “Utterly fascinating. If you access it on your cell phone, the interface is a pocket transistor radio!”

Click here to check out Resistance Radio (while it’s still online).

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RRI Summer 2017 broadcast schedule

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), for sharing Radio Romania International’s 2017 summer shortwave radio schedule:

For full details about the various ways you can listen to RRI, check out their website.

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EDXC Conference: Finland 18-20 August 2017

Making a FlightAware ADS-B feeder with a Raspberry Pi 3 and RTL-SDR dongle

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It’s been nearly a year since I acquired both the RTL-SDR (above) and Rasperry Pi 3 (below)r.

Remember when I made a plea for Pi 3 projects just last year––?

Although many of you suggested some great projects, I never actually got around to doing any of them. Now, don’t get me wrong––I wanted to, of course, but simply got involved with reviews, NPOTA, two months of travel…and, well, life.

Then, last week at the Winter SWL Fest, a common theme emerged in both presentations and discussions: the numerous applications of the super-cheap, and thus super-ubiquitous, RTL-SDR dongle. In their engaging presentations, both Dan Srebnick and Mark Fahey––SWLing Post contributors and good friends––focused on the power of the RTL-SDR, expounding upon some simple, inexpensive applications in their forums. It was inspiring. Also, buddy Eddie Muro showed me just how easily an ADS-B receiver could be set up using an Android phone.

Back to the Pi. Though I was already aware the Pi 3 and RTL-SDR could be united to make an ADS-B receiver, watching Mark Fahey talk about how simply one could feed the FlightAware network with ADS-B data finally hooked me. Why not, indeed? Here was fun to be had!

Mark preparing to woo his captive audience at the Winter SWL Fest!

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, so Tuesday, the day following my return, I set the afternoon aside. I rolled up my sleeves, and with my long-neglected Pi 3 and RTL-SDR, got ready to cook up a flight sensor.

I figured I was probably missing a component or two, and fully expected the process to be complicated, but decided I wouldn’t let this deter me. And guess what? I was wrong on both counts!

FlightAware ADS-B feeder recipe

Ingredients:

A computer to install the PiAware image on a MicroSD card
A Raspberry Pi (I use the Pi 3 which is available bare-bones and in starter packages like this one)
An RTL-SDR receiver, of which there are a couple of popular options:
- The RTL-SDR V3 (I like this package, which ships with antennas)
- The FlightAware SDR dongle with filter (no included antenna)
A MicroSD card (mine was 8GB, more than enough for this application), and
An antenna. This one is often used for ADS-B, though I found the smaller telescopic whip that shipped with my RTL-SDR dongle works well.

If you only plan to use this SDR and antenna as an ADS-B feeder, you might go for the FlightAware Dongle and 1090 MHz antenna combo.

Directions:

Note: I used this excellent PiAware ADS-B feeder tutorial to build my system–it’s detailed and doesn’t make the lofty assumption that you actually understand formatting cards, building disk images, and/or editing config text files.

Directions below are a highly distilled version of that tutorial. If you’re new to all of this, as I was, follow these directions instead of the above tutorial. Be aware that the directions assume you’re using the Pi 3 and a Windows PC to burn the image file.

Download PiAware image, 7-zip, SD card formatter, and the Win32 Disk Imager. Decompress all compressed files, install and note the folder locations.
Register your username at FlightAware–presuming you don’t already have an account, of course.
Use SD Card Formatter to format your MicroSD card. Just make sure you’re formatting the correct drive, else you could easily wipe the wrong disk/card!
Use Win32 Disk imager to write the PiAware image to your MicroSD card.
If using WiFi, open Windows Explorer. Locate text document called piaware-config on the MicroSD card, open it with a text editor, and locate the WiFi ssid and password locations. Per the config comments, edit them to match your WiFi system. Note that any special characters in both the name and password will require the use of quotation marks (again, noted in the config file comments). Save the file in the same location on the disc image.
Remove the microSD card containing the PiAware image; insert it into the Pi 3.
Connect the RTL-SDR or FlightAware dongle to the Raspberry Pi. Attach an appropriate antenna to the RTL-SDR. Note: You’ll get the best results if you place the antenna outdoors with line of sight to the skies.
Plug the Raspberry Pi 3 into a power source…and cross your fingers!
Grab a cup of coffee, walk the dog, or listen to this 12 minute version of the BBC countdown; it could take at least this long for FlightAware to start receiving data from your ADS-B feeder.
When you see this My ADS-B button in the header of FlightAware (see below), you’ll know you’re in business. Congratulations! You can now watch the skies.

Feeding FlightAware

After my ADS-B receiver had been in operation for a while, I was very impressed with the data FlightAware was able to pull from my ADS-B feed. I was equally impressed with the number of distant aircraft I could receive with such a modest antenna––a number of them up to 135 miles from my location. Once I find a suitable outdoor location for the mag mount antenna, currently indoors, I expect the reception distance will increase significantly.

You can also connect to the live feed from your ADS-B receiver through your local network. Here’s a screenshot of my live data:

Future plans

At the moment, my ADS-B receiver is located indoors, in a south-facing window.

It works, but clearly isn’t ideal. Since the Pi 3 connects to my network via WiFi, I intend to install the full ADS-B receiver system into a small weatherproof case and mount it outside. My Pi 3 has no case, so I purchased an inexpensive one yesterday. I should be able to feed it power with an outdoor outlet…but I’m very tempted to experiment with making it solar powered. To find out if this is a logical move, I need to observe and measure the power requirements first, and will be doing that in the next few weeks.

Meantime, I’m thoroughly enjoying watching the (amazingly busy) traffic in the skies…and the kid in me relishes it!

Thanks, Mark, for the great idea!

Have any SWLing Post readers attempted to build a solar-powered or outdoor ADS-B receiver? Please comment!

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