6 ms·

I really wish that I could do some basic sdr with android. People talk about decentralization and privacy and net neutrality, but sdr on handheld would sound v

by jokoon 8y ago

I really wish that I could do some basic sdr with android. People talk about decentralization and privacy and net neutrality, but sdr on handheld would sound very exciting. I'm sure ISPs would argue against it, but communicating small segments of data wirelessly between terminals would open a lot of gates for new kinds of software. Dht is already at the core of Bitcoin, yet it's not talked a lot about. Dht, to me, is the most important networked algorithm. Implementing the concepts of dht over sdr sounds new and unexplored, but it should be the internet of the future...

mmanulis 8y ago
have you seen this: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/questasdr-new-rtl-sdr-software-for-android/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/questasdr-new-rtl-sdr-software-for-a... You could take something like a NooElec (http://www.nooelec.com/ http://www.nooelec.com/) and connect it to your phone. Though you'll need a rooted device. I tried it and it wasn't the fastest thing out there but let me do some basic scanning.
- gh02t 8y ago
  I've tried a few of the apps on the Play store (non-rooted) and they did work, but they were crashy and when they did work, clunky to the point of being unusable
  - mmanulis 8y ago
    GNU Radio has a guide of how to compile it for Android. Having said that, if you're just trying to run it on your phone, it doesn't (usually) have enough power to do anything "fun". You need more capability than your average Android device. The other option is to have something a little more powerful running GNU Radio stack and then control that via your phone :)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- jcims 8y ago
  Needs tx. LimeSDR Mini or similar would let you test the concepts but obviously embedding it into the device would be best.
rayiner 8y ago
The problem is that interactions between radio systems can be highly unpredictable. LTE-U, for example, was specifically designed to co-exist with coexist with Wi-Fi, but doesn't do it very well: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/presentation/a4ac/9af05963e1f59f8fa8e4d085ad46a6418770.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/presentation/a4ac/9af05963e.... When designing wireless protocols, there are real benefits to homogeneity.
- vvanders 8y ago
  > LTE has been modified by a few companies so that it can operate in the same unlicensed spectrum that Wi-Fi uses (called LTE-U) It looks like to me that the problem is they decided to use the same bands of wifi. If you're going to be using the unlicensed spectrum expect interference.
  - thfuran 8y ago
    So you think instead people should be playing around with SDR on licensed spectrum?
    - vvanders 8y ago
      If you've got a license for the bands, sure. I can blast IQ on 14.025Mhz if I feel like it assuming I stay within baud limits. Pretty cheap and easy to get a ham license these days. Cell phones have multiple radio chips, I don't see issues with allowing SDRs on the unlicensed bands.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    But that's what you'd be doing if you permitted user-controlled transmissions from ordinary cell phones. The analog hardware in a cell phone is tied to specific frequency bands. So you'd have user-controlled transmissions, not mediated by the cell towers, on the LTE bands. Also, LTE-U was interfering with Wi-Fi. In general, the unlicensed bands would be a lot more useful if they weren't quite so unlicensed and every radio had to follow certain basic rules.
pjc50 8y ago
> communicating small segments of data wirelessly between terminals Packet radio? Or, if you're content with short range, what do you need that isn't provided by wifi? It's not the ISPs you have to worry about, it's the FCC or other local radio authorities. Because radio is a locally-shared medium, bad implementations can jam it very easily. > Dht is already at the core of Bitcoin No, it's bittorrent that uses DHT.
niftich 8y ago
No need to dip down to DSP. You can do this with Android over AP-less ("peer-to-peer") Wi-Fi, so you're coding against a nicer API and Android will speak the protocol for you [1][2]. [1] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifip2p https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi... [2] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi-aware https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi...
- Immortalin 8y ago
  For anyone working with P2P WiFi I highly recommend the Salut Library. https://github.com/markrjr/Salut https://github.com/markrjr/Salut Thé Android P2P API is pretty difficult to use in general.
madengr 8y ago
https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/Android https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/Android
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
> People talk about decentralization and privacy and net neutrality, but sdr on handheld would sound very exciting "but"?
RpFLCL 8y ago
Certainly this is possible with a raspberry pi and a handheld radio. At my last company I had a friend and coworker who used a pi to communicate with his Android phone for GPS data to then broadcast APRS packets to track his morning bikeride in to the office. Not exactly handheld but there is room for miniaturization.
app4soft 8y ago
Rtl-sdr driver[0] -- Port of rtl-sdr's rtl_tcp. Allows you to use I/Q packet source in your Android applications. All you need is to launch an intent in the form "iqsrc://rtl_tcp_arguments" where you replace rtl_tcp_arguments with the arguments that you want your application to run rtl_tcp with and the magic will be done behind the scenes. This driver could be used by third party applications to implement Software Defined Radio. It does not require root for Android 3.1 and above. [0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/marto.rtl_tcp_andro/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/marto.rtl_tcp_andro/

by jokoon 8y ago

mmanulis 8y ago

have you seen this: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/questasdr-new-rtl-sdr-software-for-android/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/questasdr-new-rtl-sdr-software-for-a... You could take something like a NooElec (http://www.nooelec.com/ http://www.nooelec.com/) and connect it to your phone. Though you'll need a rooted device. I tried it and it wasn't the fastest thing out there but let me do some basic scanning.

gh02t 8y ago
I've tried a few of the apps on the Play store (non-rooted) and they did work, but they were crashy and when they did work, clunky to the point of being unusable
- mmanulis 8y ago
  GNU Radio has a guide of how to compile it for Android. Having said that, if you're just trying to run it on your phone, it doesn't (usually) have enough power to do anything "fun". You need more capability than your average Android device. The other option is to have something a little more powerful running GNU Radio stack and then control that via your phone :)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
jcims 8y ago
Needs tx. LimeSDR Mini or similar would let you test the concepts but obviously embedding it into the device would be best.

rayiner 8y ago

The problem is that interactions between radio systems can be highly unpredictable. LTE-U, for example, was specifically designed to co-exist with coexist with Wi-Fi, but doesn't do it very well: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/presentation/a4ac/9af05963e1f59f8fa8e4d085ad46a6418770.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/presentation/a4ac/9af05963e.... When designing wireless protocols, there are real benefits to homogeneity.

vvanders 8y ago
> LTE has been modified by a few companies so that it can operate in the same unlicensed spectrum that Wi-Fi uses (called LTE-U) It looks like to me that the problem is they decided to use the same bands of wifi. If you're going to be using the unlicensed spectrum expect interference.
- thfuran 8y ago
  So you think instead people should be playing around with SDR on licensed spectrum?
  - vvanders 8y ago
    If you've got a license for the bands, sure. I can blast IQ on 14.025Mhz if I feel like it assuming I stay within baud limits. Pretty cheap and easy to get a ham license these days. Cell phones have multiple radio chips, I don't see issues with allowing SDRs on the unlicensed bands.
- rayiner 8y ago
  But that's what you'd be doing if you permitted user-controlled transmissions from ordinary cell phones. The analog hardware in a cell phone is tied to specific frequency bands. So you'd have user-controlled transmissions, not mediated by the cell towers, on the LTE bands. Also, LTE-U was interfering with Wi-Fi. In general, the unlicensed bands would be a lot more useful if they weren't quite so unlicensed and every radio had to follow certain basic rules.

pjc50 8y ago

> communicating small segments of data wirelessly between terminals Packet radio? Or, if you're content with short range, what do you need that isn't provided by wifi? It's not the ISPs you have to worry about, it's the FCC or other local radio authorities. Because radio is a locally-shared medium, bad implementations can jam it very easily. > Dht is already at the core of Bitcoin No, it's bittorrent that uses DHT.

niftich 8y ago

No need to dip down to DSP. You can do this with Android over AP-less ("peer-to-peer") Wi-Fi, so you're coding against a nicer API and Android will speak the protocol for you [1][2]. [1] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifip2p https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi... [2] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi-aware https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi...

Immortalin 8y ago
For anyone working with P2P WiFi I highly recommend the Salut Library. https://github.com/markrjr/Salut https://github.com/markrjr/Salut Thé Android P2P API is pretty difficult to use in general.

madengr 8y ago

https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/Android https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/Android

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

> People talk about decentralization and privacy and net neutrality, but sdr on handheld would sound very exciting "but"?

RpFLCL 8y ago

Certainly this is possible with a raspberry pi and a handheld radio. At my last company I had a friend and coworker who used a pi to communicate with his Android phone for GPS data to then broadcast APRS packets to track his morning bikeride in to the office. Not exactly handheld but there is room for miniaturization.

app4soft 8y ago

Rtl-sdr driver[0] -- Port of rtl-sdr's rtl_tcp. Allows you to use I/Q packet source in your Android applications. All you need is to launch an intent in the form "iqsrc://rtl_tcp_arguments" where you replace rtl_tcp_arguments with the arguments that you want your application to run rtl_tcp with and the magic will be done behind the scenes. This driver could be used by third party applications to implement Software Defined Radio. It does not require root for Android 3.1 and above. [0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/marto.rtl_tcp_andro/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/marto.rtl_tcp_andro/