Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio (2024)

I got a walkie talkie set as a Christmas present when I was 8. Which was kind of an evil thing to do given I had no siblings or friends to play with. One day I turned one set on and listened for a while and I thought I heard someone talking behind all the static noise. So I said something and was shocked to hear the voice talking back to me. Fast forward a few decades, next week is my wedding and that voice on the other side of the radio is my best man.

I got chills reading this. Congrats!

This is awesome, and future congratulations on your wedding!

I expected the voice on the other side being your soon-to-be wife. But good story nevertheless. Congrats!

Congrats! That's such a cool story!

>Fast forward a few decades, next week is my wedding and that voice on the other side of the radio is...

I think I've seen too many rom-coms because I was sure this sentence going to end with "my fiance." : )

This is awesome, and congratulations!

my family had a little portable TV (GE 7-7150B, link below) that we'd usually only use down in the basement during severe weather.

one day I learned that you could tune in all sorts of non-TV frequencies. In particular, you could tune into any phone calls my neighbors were making on their wireless phones.

i loved that little tv and used it up until the conversion to digital OTA tranmissions.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4qYPLd8owc

damn, that's awesome.. I feel like I just watched the opening scene of a nice "stand by me" type movie.

Ten years ago I proposed to my best friend.

She said no.

Plot Twist AF… you could be a writer

My dad was a HAM (W7AAI) and as a kid I found the frequencies for walkie talkies on his receiver in the shack. After Christmas I would tune in and hear local kids doing the "I can hear you, can you hear me?" thing with the new presents.

Are you still friends?

Awesome story and well told

I thought the same thing. But it does happen, my neighbors started dating and eventually married after meeting over ham radio.

I had a black and white solid state Sony TV in my bedroom when I was growing up.

Aside from dialing into late night TV programmes my parents prohibited, there were two buttons that switched between VHF and UHF.

Toggling the UHF button allowed me to tune into police radio.

Being able to capture this via that TV felt close to magic, and I think probably went a long way to forming my associations between technology, mystery and discovery.

Does a hollywood movie with that plot exist?

Sorry to hear that.

Are you willing to say what happened afterwards?

Just think about all of the weather and doctors appointments they can talk about now!

An article in TV Guide back in the 70s said you could tune in to tornados too. You'd dial it down below channel 2 (IIRC) and you could pick up EM static generated by a tornado within range.

This guy hams. 73.