Just got one of these RTL-SDR compatible dongles

Just got one of these RTL-SDR compatible dongles.
What can I do with it?

Other urls found in this thread:

rtl-sdr.com/
sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr
gnuradio.org/
youtube.com/watch?v=OTKn1UwYMBI
op25.osmocom.org/trac/wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Trunked_Radio
ettus.com/product/details/USRP-B205mini-i
asiawaves.net/vietnam-radio.htm
superkuh.com/288/
baodatviet.vn/chinh-tri-xa-hoi/tin-tuc-thoi-su/xac-minh-loa-phuong-nhieu-song-trung-quoc-chua-thay-gi-3314280/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

rtl-sdr.com/
sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr
gnuradio.org/
ftp://joelixny.ddns.net/!books/AntennaBook22.iso

Track some airplanes and have your family report you for being a terrorist because they're fucking idiots.

police/fire scanner

Tossing the antenna and building / buying a new one should be job #1

If you're from europe

youtube.com/watch?v=OTKn1UwYMBI

Yeah that's what I did. I cut up some coax to length and interlaced it into an antenna, and secured it in a PVC tube with electrical tape. Worked pretty well until my neighbors thought I was stealing cable and reported me to the landlord, and then when I tried to explain about tracking airplanes he flipped out. Goddamn poo in loos.

>my neighbors thought I was stealing cable and reported me to the landlord, and then when I tried to explain about tracking airplanes he flipped out. Goddamn poo in loos.

that's fucking hilarious

but it's your own fault for telling the truth

How do I do that? I could barely receive FM/AM.
Also the antenna it came with is kinda shitty. Doesn't help that my room is a dead zone.

top laff

and then sad

did you do more than 30 seconds of research before your purchase or did you just see a link to it in some lifehacker article or something and thought it sounded cool?

>my neighbors thought I was stealing cable and reported me to the landlord, and then when I tried to explain about tracking airplanes he flipped out. Goddamn poo in loos.

I was buying some chinkshit and it was $5 so I might as well get it, seeing I only buy things once every blue moon.
Didn't expect the antenna to be so shit.

>police/fire scanner
Most developed countries use strong encryption for police radios nowadays

literally this!
also check plebbit and >>>/tech/

Its fun to track drug cartels in my country they are dumb as fuck and fun to mess with. So far I've only gotten 1 of them killed thanks to me fucking around saying their code word for panic. Shit was hilarious.

>Most developed countries use strong encryption for police radios nowadays
nigga pls
DSD
GNURadio
op25.osmocom.org/trac/wiki

What exactly are you trying to say?

You got a transmitter? How powerful is it?

We don't even have police radio outside of the portable ones they use to talk to each other.

Well I don't know where you live but in Germany the police switched to 256-bit encrypted TETRA.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Trunked_Radio

There isn't much known about the TEA algorithm other than it's symmetric 256 bit encryption with frequently changing session keys to provide forward secrecy.

I just ordered one of these as well. What software should i start out with on linux?

Countries that use TETRA for the police:
Pakistan
Namibia
most of Western Europe
Romania
Israel
Qatar
Mexico

but the USA is apparently still using unencrypted police radio? Hard to believe.

Baofeng UV-82 8w TX when enabled 5W stock
HackRF for RC stuff
The RTL-SDR just for monitoring as it doesnt have the capabilities to transmit .

Thinking about getting real hardware "USRP" since the HackRF is halfduplex and well its kinda deaf.

Holy shit Germany doesn't play huh... damn that would be a challenge to break into. I bet the conversations are worth it. Caribbean btw.

You can listen into almost any US police scanner. It's fun tuning in to the Chicago police scanner on the weekends and hearing all the nogs getting shot.

By the way, is there a way to monitor for a signal if you don't know the frequency?
As in, find a certain broadcast on an unknown frequency.

I just tried gqrx for AM/FM.
You can use it to receive DVB-T too. Works with mpv, but you need to scan for channels first.

>So far I've only gotten 1 of them killed thanks to me fucking around saying their code word for panic. Shit was hilarious.
greentext

what are your trying to hear? RC toy, pager, spy bug? If you know the item then you can find it on the FCC database. (98% of the time)

We have this thing that receives audio and plays it through a loudspeaker. Its purpose is to deliver information to a large area at once.
I want to know if it listens to a certain signal to activate.

Take pics of the "thing" and post it , see if there is a label that will help a lot.

This is what I'm currently using. I plan to eventually set it up outdoors, but it's easy to stealth antennas for realtek sdrs.

It's hung on a 10m pole and is shielded in a weather-proof box. Also I doubt it's FCC certified.

Wrong pic

listen to radio

i use old roof tv antenna and i recieve police, planes, satcom very well. Satcom is especially fun, there are sstv transmissions there, and some niggers talking in nigger languages a lot

Policetracking. I use it to track babyphones. Installed it on my laptop and I drive around in my car being a total creep.

>be me
>late Friday night about 2 years ago
>rival gangs are at war for power and the death of a dealer
>monitor the usual frequencies
>find active chatter between the watchers
>bingo
>hear them say they are expecting their rivals to drive by at any moment.
>wait until late night money count at 2am
>they are usually trigger happy crackheads
>yell over their frequency
>"AGUA AGUA AGUA!!!!"
>They fell for it and continued yelling agua agua agua
>over 10-15 minutes later
>"Who the fuck yelled agua?"
>ohhboyherewego.jpg.exe.js
>they start blaming each other until they all go for the new guy
>big guy calls him to his quarters
>silence...
>shots are heard over the distance
>business as usual
>next day I overheard at the deli that someone was found at the empty buildings with multiple shots to the head.
>GET SHIVERS
>leave the fuck out
>felt empty,shocked but somewhat happy I removed caco.

...and thats the story how I manage to be a vigilante for a few minutes

>buying thing before knowing what to do with said thing

well meme'd op

rtl-sdrs have 2-3MHz wide bandwidth. Using an fft display, you can detect active signals in this range. For instance, if I want to listen to pilots radioing into my local airport, I dial in 108MHz and scroll from that to 117MHz 3MHz at a time.

Jesus Christ man... that cable management well that looks "cabled" ... but most likely over the 800 mhz since there is no signs of an antenna there ... any possible way of getting a better picture of the box to see if anything comes out of it? also country?

Which antenna fits on these things? I have the stock antenna but I can only find radio.

It depends. Some of these use Belling-Lee, the better ones use SMA.

The ones installed near my house has a telescope antenna sticking out.
Country is Vietnam. Google "loa phuong" for pics.
They're considering phasing these out since they're too annoying.

Mine is a MCX connector.

>babyphones
What frequency? Sounds interesting.

Amerilard here, could I use one of these to pick up ATSC?

Nope, not enough bandwidth for ATSC.

ettus.com/product/details/USRP-B205mini-i

You could receive and transmit ATSC with this though.

interesting let me check what I can find also when and what do they transmit?

Comms down here in my neck of the woods are encrypted.

Ahhhh, shame.

Seems nice, but pretty expensive when all I need is a simple USB ATSC receiver.

Depends on area. The stations aren't very powerful I think, they only have to transmit to a (relative to most stations) small area.
They transmit news mostly.

If it helps, the audio is mono and the quality sucks, though I don't know if it's because they use AM or the speakers just suck.

Dallas police uses analog unencrypted radio. The surrounding suburbs have jumped to digital, but they're not encrypted either.

asiawaves.net/vietnam-radio.htm
Do you have an RTL-SDR check if you can recognize any of the stations transmitting here.

I can receive VOV and local stations fine. Some aren't very clear but listenable.

Can I receive AM with the rtl sdrs? I saw the minimum freq is 24MHz.

Yes, AM is usually around 100MHz.

I thought they're in the KHz range?

You can receive AM transmissions but not low frequencies as you will need a down converter (HAM IT UP) and a longwire antenna. I'm still looking for more information on how these speakers operate as it looks like they may use long frequencies for more coverage.

Ahhhh shit you're right, mixing FM and AM up again.

*low frequencies*

These are cool, but the included crystals are notoriously shit. You'll try to tune a specific frequency and won't find anything there. You'll find it .0125-1.0MHz offset. And it'll change over time with temperature.

Fortunately, you can replace/mod the tuner to correct the issue:
superkuh.com/288/

I don't think they really need much coverage. But they may use it to make up for low transmit power.

baodatviet.vn/chinh-tri-xa-hoi/tin-tuc-thoi-su/xac-minh-loa-phuong-nhieu-song-trung-quoc-chua-thay-gi-3314280/

They may just be using plain FM user ... do they have broadcasts times? or they just go all day long? If so check to see if the transmission can be picked up in an old fashion radio at the same time you pick it up with the RTL-SDR.

They may be using a preamble to have the radios listen for them in order to start the broadcast which im 100% sure they do anyway to deflect people from over taking them but if you can capture it you can replay it so.... yeah.

Where I live they use digital unencrypted p25 phase 1 system. Some analog for other entities. Some cities are using encrypted though, and some have just one encrypted channel for info they don't want people to hear.

Link?

google rtl1090

They do have times, but again, it depends on area.
The "areas" are small. The one I'm in is 0.5sqkm.

It's from taobao. You need an agent. Check /csg/

I guess I'll try around 90MHz, since there are some frequencies allotted to the city there.