Please wait...
USB SDR showed today. ( receiver only, not going to spend the
$ for a transceiver, i have my handheld HF radios for that )
which one did you get? I have been curious about a bunch of them but haven't pulled the trigger yet. On many of the cheaper ones, sensitivity and selectivity below 30MHz are sub-par, but even with that limitation I'd have a use for one anyway. Mainly looking for something to monitor 2M repeaters and public safety that can be driven by a linux laptop (like my outdated MBP that runs MX or Pop!OS.)
Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 + some antennas.
Running older software so far. Gqrx. Let it run all last night on a local commercial FM broadcast station to burn it in. There is some scanner script for Gqrx i may try this week. Also want to look into more modern software, but its working...
which one did you get? I have been curious about a bunch of them but haven't pulled the trigger yet.
Well damn.
I got a visit from the feds, asking me about the radio and why i have an unlicensed dish antenna sitting near the garage ( its not installed, just laying there ). They forced me to turn them both in. I didn't mention my ham band transceivers in the closet.
2025-01-23 19:26 from Nurb432 <nurb432@uncensored.citadel.org>
Well damn.
I got a visit from the feds, asking me about the radio and why i have
an unlicensed dish antenna sitting near the garage ( its not
installed, just laying there ). They forced me to turn them both
in. I didn't mention my ham band transceivers in the closet.
"Unlicensed dish antenna" ??? wtf? you need a license just to own an antenna? Sounds like some BS to me.
I was joking. I THOUGHT i had a "lol" a few lines below the rest to give it away as such. But its not there. ( user error somehow )
Was meant more as a 'predictive sarcasm' sort of thing.
Sat Jan 25 2025 03:05:01 UTC from zelgomer"Unlicensed dish antenna" ??? wtf? you need a license just to own an antenna? Sounds like some BS to me.
2025-01-25 12:12 from Nurb432 <nurb432@uncensored.citadel.org>
I was joking. I THOUGHT i had a "lol" a few lines below the rest to
give it away as such. But its not there. ( user error somehow )
Was meant more as a 'predictive sarcasm' sort of thing.
Sorry I misunddrstood. You actually had me thinking, "oshit! we're further gone than i thought!"
nah, my fault for not proof reading before i submitted.
Sad part is it WAS believable.
Mon Jan 27 2025 01:37:13 UTC from zelgomer
Sorry I misunddrstood. You actually had me thinking, "oshit! we're further gone than i thought!"
Darn.
Was going to add some presets to my main BF handheld ( not the 'world is collapsing gotta bug out prepper ones ). Went to install the BT app on my phone ( i got a BT programmer few years ago so i wasn't stuck with windows and a cable .. and so it could be done on the trail in special situations, but replaced the phone since then ). Seems its no longer supported so nothing i have now will let it install. But its still in the store.. ( and no, didn't see it on one of the 3rd party app stores so i could just grab the APK )
Guess i either have to use my windows VM or do it on the keypad, which is painful on these things..
I got a visit from the feds, asking me about the radio and why i
have an unlicensed dish antenna sitting near the garage ( its
I know you said you were kidding, but there are actually all sorts of legit uses for parabolic dish antennas beyond trying to pick up signals not intended for you. Aside from free-to-air satellite transmissions, there are also people who have switched from the old C and Ku band service to the modern Direct Broadcast Satellite (which is also Ku band) and have mounted their LNB on their old "big" dish instead of using the 18" dish that comes with it. This provides ridiculously strong signal even in the worst of conditions. After all, the bigger the dish, the stronger the signal; size *does* matter here.
But the last time I looked at it was in 2009 when you could get the entire DirecTV lineup from a single satellite. Now I think you need those oval shape dishes that can pick up multiple birds at the same time. I stopped being interested when I took my dish down and got fiber. Someday when I'm old and bored I might start exploring the airwaves again.
I might have mentioned it before, if so, just ignore this..
Few years ago i dabbled in that as i ended up with a free dish and triple LNA when i cancelled my service. They refused to come get it, i refused to climb on my roof just to get it for them. Forced them to refund the deposit under threat of suit of asking to 'put me in peril on the roof', when they installed it. And yes i can get on my roof just fine, it was just their attitude that pissed me off.."we are not coming, you are going to do it or we charge you"
I did turn in their box. Decided i wanted to play, so picked up a pirate receiver, so that i could enter codes for encrypted transmissions. But found out things:
- If you cant rotate from your living room, don't bother.
- if you have trees, you are stuck with one or two birds
- free-to-air, was pretty dismal for content. At least from what i was able to get. YMMV
- pirate - unless you just cant do it legally for some reason, not worth the cat-mouse game with the codes. ( its 2025, might as well just torrent it.. )
- need to be really into TV.. ( im not )
Sun Mar 09 2025 23:28:09 UTC from IGnatius T FoobarI know you said you were kidding, but there are actually all sorts of legit uses for parabolic dish antennas
ooo chirp does exist for linux now. Have to see if i can make that work. its python, so it should...
Fri Jan 31 2025 16:26:46 UTC from Nurb432Darn.
Was going to add some presets to my main BF handheld ( not the 'world is collapsing gotta bug out prepper ones ). Went to install the BT app on my phone ( i got a BT programmer few years ago so i wasn't stuck with windows and a cable .. and so it could be done on the trail in special situations, but replaced the phone since then ). Seems its no longer supported so nothing i have now will let it install. But its still in the store.. ( and no, didn't see it on one of the 3rd party app stores so i could just grab the APK )
Guess i either have to use my windows VM or do it on the keypad, which is painful on these things..
to update seemingly every week to keep up. ( i forget the details on
how he did it, i think it was analog back then? ) To me, not worth the
effort.. but it was his hobby, so i guess effort is relative.
It was not too different from having a ham radio hobby. Before the 1980s everything was analog and unscrambled, because the number of consumers who had dishes was vanishingly small the pay-tv people basically ran on the honor system. Then it became popular in the 1980s so the networks all started using VideoCipher II to lock out non-paying consumers.
Free-to-air is fun if you want to play around with the equipment. The channels you can receive, however, are all likely to have ways to tune in on the Internet.
If you're looking for something unique you'd probably have more luck with shortwave radio.
Before i got bored and put the new SDR in the closet, about all i could get around here was a religious blip. and even that, wasn't reliable. I think for practical purposes shortwave is dead too. Internet ate it as well.
Of course when AGI takes net down hard here in a couple of years, people will wish they had radio.
Thu Mar 27 2025 13:39:13 UTC from IGnatius T FoobarIf you're looking for something unique you'd probably have more luck with shortwave radio.
A lot of old hobbies got taken down by new ones. In fact, I remember a conversation here (not in this room, but here on Uncensored) probably some 20 years ago where we were talking about how many tech hobbies and other hobbies declined fast once everyone had computers to play with. Things like radio, photography, theater tech, all of the classics. Another generation of that happened once the whole world got onto the Internet (ironically, making some of the classic computer hobbies decline as well).
I think that's why all things "retro" are getting so popular now, even among people too young to have the nostalgia. Today's tech is too polished, too perfect, too fenced off from its roots to enjoy the coolness factor of it all. "AI" takes it even one step further. People want to tinker. When they can't, they go for the old stuff.
I bought a little battery powered multi band receiver, and tiny USB solar panel thing to charge it with, after the last time we were without power for a while and cut-off from the rest of the world. ( Nature was pissed at us i guess, hurricanes are not to be toyed with )
But as of yet not really done anything with it, other than program it to fetch local weather, which it struggles to do out here.
I think that's why all things "retro" are getting so popular
now, even among people too young to have the nostalgia.
Today's tech is too polished, too perfect, too fenced off from
its roots to enjoy the coolness factor of it all. "AI" takes
it even one step further. People want to tinker. When they
can't, they go for the old stuff.
I can speak about all the retro hobbyist, but I can tell you my case.
Retro in general is cool because it is accessible. It is hard to change the headlights of some modern cars when they get broken; on an old car this is less of an issue. It is cheap to run old games on cheap off-the-shelf hardware; getting into modern gaming is expensive.
Specifically regarding software, lots of old machines are well documented and have modern development frameworks. You can develop games for the ZX Spectrum using engines created today. I guess it is not very authentic to code a game on a Linux machine and then record it to the tape you feed your Spectrum, but the point is you can do it with less pain than you used to get.
Also regarding games, many people uses retro games as an escape from the predatory practices of the current industry. Many goames today are not designed to be fun, but to bleed you dry of all your worth. I don't feel like buying an xTreme GPU in order to buy xTreme games that force you to pay MTX through the nose in order to keep up, not to mention that modern business practices imply you don't own games you buy. Meanwhile I can play MSDOS and earlier games and have a blast with them for peanuts.