I bought a cheap RTL-SDR to help solve a CTF challenge at DEFCON. The 2m/70cm antenna on my roof is begging for a fun project that’s not just talking to other hams.
I might do a brief write up on setting up NTSC and PAL broadcasts if there’s any interest. It’s a neat little project to get some life out of an old CRT you might have lying around. Although I don’t believe the RTLSDR has enough bandwidth to fully cover a NTSC stream, but I have seen a write up where someone got it working with some compromises. I found a neat piece of software that uses ffmpeg and even has yt-dlp support and a GUI wrapper for it. I’m actually using it right now to play music videos, with a MTV logo and all. My understanding of antennas is…lackluster. It’s all over coax anyways to avoid any run-ins with the FCC.
Actually, amateur TV broadcast was something that interested me. I had the opportunity to buy an SDR with wider bandwidth, but I wasn’t sure how much I’d get into it, so I kept things cheap.
Another thing I’m looking into is ADS-B flight tracking. My house is within range of a sports arena where there are all manner of overhead banners get flown. Might be fun to follow them around on a map.
You should pickup a HackTV if you’re interested in SDR. Add on a portapack and you can scan ADS-B and a bunch of other stuff off internal battery power with no computer/tablet. And it has great driver and software support when you want to connect it to a computer. The only downside compared to more expensive radios like the kraken is that it’s half-duplex. But for how I use and for the price it that’s not a problem.
If you post on [email protected], I’d read.
I bought a cheap RTL-SDR to help solve a CTF challenge at DEFCON. The 2m/70cm antenna on my roof is begging for a fun project that’s not just talking to other hams.
I might do a brief write up on setting up NTSC and PAL broadcasts if there’s any interest. It’s a neat little project to get some life out of an old CRT you might have lying around. Although I don’t believe the RTLSDR has enough bandwidth to fully cover a NTSC stream, but I have seen a write up where someone got it working with some compromises. I found a neat piece of software that uses ffmpeg and even has yt-dlp support and a GUI wrapper for it. I’m actually using it right now to play music videos, with a MTV logo and all. My understanding of antennas is…lackluster. It’s all over coax anyways to avoid any run-ins with the FCC.
Actually, amateur TV broadcast was something that interested me. I had the opportunity to buy an SDR with wider bandwidth, but I wasn’t sure how much I’d get into it, so I kept things cheap.
Another thing I’m looking into is ADS-B flight tracking. My house is within range of a sports arena where there are all manner of overhead banners get flown. Might be fun to follow them around on a map.
You should pickup a HackTV if you’re interested in SDR. Add on a portapack and you can scan ADS-B and a bunch of other stuff off internal battery power with no computer/tablet. And it has great driver and software support when you want to connect it to a computer. The only downside compared to more expensive radios like the kraken is that it’s half-duplex. But for how I use and for the price it that’s not a problem.