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

(blinry.org)
939 points mihau | 1 comments | 16 Sep 25 14:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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tedggh ◴[16 Sep 25 15:39 UTC] No.45263749[source]▶
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.
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parpfish ◴[16 Sep 25 16:56 UTC] No.45264813[source]▶
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

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1. lwhi ◴[17 Sep 25 07:29 UTC] No.45272897[source]▶
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.