Adventure Rocket Ship

I think I was first introduced to the idea of software-defined radio at What The Hack in 2005. A chap (more than likely Eric Blossom) was going on at some length about passive radar, telemetry and DXing using computers, a thing called GNU Radio and some DC-to-daylight hardware for £Kerching! It sounded like all sorts of jolly expensive fun, and the notion of passive radar I filed away for a story where the bad sorts couldn't find the upstart troublemakers because their radar-seeking missiles had no radar transmitter to seek.

A few weeks ago, jarkman was going on at length about RTL-SDR and cheap Freeview podules. I filed that away because I was in between getting paid.

Since then I've been paid, and indeed accidentally Ebay for a USB podule that will cope with circa 27MHz to 1.7GHz at £12 delivered. Not quite DC to daylight, but not quite £2K either.

(I note that a search of 'ebay RTL' reveals all sorts of Shenzen-sourced things that 'require own welding', but will start at 100KHz where all the valve-pilot wireless lives.)

Thus I have been nmapping bits of the radio spectrum to see what's out there. (That's theoretically where all the airport beacons and pilot/ATC chatter lives.)

One used to be able to spot the radio-ham types as one was driven about as a child, because they were the people with several thumping great aerials in their back gardens. I very much doubt that I'll end up with a rotating Yagi, but a small discone looks like it would be fun to build.

Things:
http://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Signal_Identification_Guide
http://www.techmeology.co.uk/gr-scan/
http://superkuh.com/rtlsdr.html
http://kmkeen.com/rtl-power/
https://github.com/keenerd/rtl-sdr-misc/blob/master/heatmap/heatmap.py

% rtl_power -f 24M:32M:8k -e 1h rtty.csv
% heatmap.py rtty.csv rtty.jpg

https://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090
http://antirez.com/news/46
http://helix.air.net.au/index.php/d-i-y-discone-for-rtlsdr/

I try to keep an open mind on this whole MeejaBiz vs Terrible Interweb malarkey. I put my hand in my pocket where I can because I have this daft socialist idea that the workers should be recompensed for their labour and favour direct exchange rather than any corporatist nonsense about rewarding the distribution agents.

I understand that there's been some debate on the usenet about one or other of the EBM/Cyber/Whatever labels having to shut up shop due to internet-based piracy. Seems an odd business, if true.

Anyway. There was minor discussion about a film called Moebius. It's Argentinian and seems to involve a train going missing when the tube system goes over-complicated and collapses in on itself. In the topological sense, rather than the structural and/or Hollywood Epic Disaster one. It sounded interesting, but the chances of seeing it seemed to tend toward zero unless some random arthouse cinema found it. However, there was a torrent link. Which, surprisingly, worked. The next problem was the lack of subtitles. Little did I know about the several internet subtitling projects...

As someone who has watched this whole port-80 business more or less lurch into life from day 0, I'm gleefully surprised when any of this stuff works.

(I don't have a point, I'm just rambling.)

It's on: http://events.ccc.de/2007/01/24/chaos-communication-camp-2007/

Handy for this: http://www.luftfahrtmuseum-finowfurt.de/museum.htm

I think a small round of 'Oh fuck yes' is in order.