From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Mon Nov 1 12:30:18 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Mon Nov 1 12:30:21 2004 Subject: [URC] Those dangerous radio geeks Message-ID: <20041101043018.GG640@shikita.rcpt.to> This happened last week to a guy in Sydney a couple of hours after putting up a wireless AP. (from http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=257009&p=1) Got home in the arvo today with four cops outside my unit. Apparently it was due to a black box which I've placed on the fence. Some neighbours got so alert (but of course, not alarmed) that they called 1800123400, thinking it was a bomb. The cops were extremely rude, unprofessional, pushy, and threatening. One of the two women was very patronising too - why can't they be nicer to people? I've cut the wire to the weatherproof box (hosting an access point) and opened it up and showed it to them - it's a very deadly 2.4Ghz microwave radiation weapon. From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Mon Nov 1 20:45:32 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Mon Nov 1 20:45:28 2004 Subject: [URC] Testing 1 Message-ID: <20041101124532.GJ640@shikita.rcpt.to> Testing to urc@urc.gu.uwa.edu.au From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Mon Nov 1 20:46:19 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Mon Nov 1 20:46:14 2004 Subject: [URC] Test again Message-ID: <20041101124619.GK640@shikita.rcpt.to> Test to urc@urc.guild.uwa.edu.au Does anyone want a @urc.gu email address? www.urc.gu.uwa.edu.au and www.urc.guild.uwa.edu.au work as well. :) David From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Wed Nov 3 15:56:34 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Wed Nov 3 15:56:26 2004 Subject: [URC] Web Page access Message-ID: <20041103075633.GL640@shikita.rcpt.to> Hi everyone, I've set up WebDAV access to www.urc.gu.uwa.edu.au, so we can update it more easily if we want. If you haven't played with webdav before, there is a simple client built into windows. Open up IE, go to File/Open, and type in http://www.urc.gu.uwa.edu.au/ and check the box saying "Open as Web Folder". It will then prompt you for a username and password (see below), and you can then drag and drop files in and out, or create new folders, as if it was any other directory, over HTTP. If you want access, drop me an email with a username and a (not used for other things) password. If you want my public GPG key, finger my UCC account. Similarly, if anyone wants an email forward from urc.gu.uwa.edu.au, let me know. We have a domain that we're not using for much :) Cheers, David From susie at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Thu Nov 4 13:34:46 2004 From: susie at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (Susie Hellings) Date: Thu Nov 4 13:53:30 2004 Subject: [URC] test... me is silly Message-ID: <20041104053446.GB170691@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> testing... From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Tue Nov 16 16:29:35 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Tue Nov 16 16:29:04 2004 Subject: [URC] Re: URC thing at UCC camp In-Reply-To: <20041110125021.GL466045@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> References: <20041110125021.GL466045@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> Message-ID: <20041116082935.GM7447@shikita.rcpt.to> Hey guys, Does anyone know for sure when UCCamp finishes on the Sunday? If not, who should I ask about it? Also, I haven't been there before. Any vague ideas on line-of-sight or places to put antennas? It doesn't have to be direct line of sight, but it would help if we had something close. Being in a valley seems to really suck. :) Not that it's a problem. At worst we can play with HF (although it's not going to be that useful during that time of the day; I have to play with it more) David (who although has finished his exams, is now working on an SE104 project, or at least studiously avoiding it) On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 08:50:21PM +0800, Nick Bannon wrote: > On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 09:56:05AM +0800, James Andrewartha wrote: > > I was just wondering what the details were for the URC thing you're > > holding at ucc camp so I can update the webpage, and maybe send out a > > ucc-announce reminder. > > You could add the ICBM co-ordinates to the webpage. ::-) > 32.03297 South 116.11014 East Elevation 282m > > Hmmm, this year, I don't _think_ I'm going to get to the UCCCamp > proper, but I will make it for the Sunday afternoon if the URC workshop > is there. Maybe show up early and pay for a swim... > > What we have to check is - can we hold an afternoon gathering at DRAC? > or do we have to be out of there early, in which case we'll have to > hold it elsewhere? > > Nick. > > -- > Nick Bannon | "I made this letter longer than usual because > nick-sig@rcpt.to | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal From matt at ucc.asn.au Tue Nov 16 17:02:53 2004 From: matt at ucc.asn.au (Matt Johnston) Date: Tue Nov 16 17:03:02 2004 Subject: [URC] Re: URC thing at UCC camp In-Reply-To: <20041116082935.GM7447@shikita.rcpt.to> References: <20041110125021.GL466045@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> <20041116082935.GM7447@shikita.rcpt.to> Message-ID: <20041116090253.GA249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 04:29:35PM +0800, David Basden wrote: > Hey guys, > > Does anyone know for sure when UCCamp finishes on the Sunday? If > not, who should I ask about it? Not sure, think it might be 11 or 12 we have to be out. Though if we were to hang around a bit outside they mightn't care too much... > > Also, I haven't been there before. Any vague ideas on line-of-sight > or places to put antennas? It doesn't have to be direct line of > sight, but it would help if we had something close. Being in a > valley seems to really suck. :) It's at a sports ground, so there's a football oval etc there? Don't think there's much range though to see things, certainly not towards Perth (wrong side of the hill(s)). Matt From basded01 at tartarus.uwa.edu.au Sun Nov 21 13:27:15 2004 From: basded01 at tartarus.uwa.edu.au (David Basden) Date: Sun Nov 21 13:27:26 2004 Subject: [URC] Using a SVGA card as part of a direct synthesis SDR? Message-ID: <20041121052715.GA1697@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> Hi guys, Does anyone know much about how SVGA cards work? Specifically, i'm wondering if I can use the RAMDAC in a boring SVGA card as an output for a software defined radio. People have been doing this for a long time with soundcards (I played with this for a while, and it's pretty easy to generate moderately low bandwidth stuff, such as AFSK1200, DTMF or Slow Scan TV. You just generate a buffer with a modulated sine wave[0] in it and throw it at your friendly local sound driver.[1]) This makes a lot of sense, especially seeing as there is no difference between using a sound card to generate music and generating a low bandwidth signal that doesn't happen to be music[2]. Also, until recently, there wasn't really the CPU time to directly synth a higher bandwidth signal in real time. Looking at a boring SVGA card these days, it's basically a chunk of memory, some programmable clocks, and a few DACs. To output a video signal, it iterates across the chunk of RAM containing the display bitmap (framebuffer), going to the next pixel at each dot-clock cycle, and setting the output level appropriately on the signal pin. Even the most boring cards can program the dot-clocks at 90MHz, giving you a theoretical output bandwidth of 45MHz. A bit cooler than the 22kHz of a bog-standard sound card. Admittedly, these are probably only 8 bit DACs, making life a bit harder for AM, but you have 3 channels you can drive simultaniously[3] I think that at simplest you would have to disable the vertical (and horizontal) blanking, because it would be unhelpful to stop the DAC during this time. I don't know if this is hard or not. As for the sync signals happily provided, you can either ignore them, or use them as a reference clock for external hardware[4]. The only other problem I can think of would be the lack of a vertical blanking period to update the buffer. Does anyone know if modern SVGA hardware is this flexible? Looking at the XFree86 server, it seems to be so (given you can manually specify timings and dotclocks). You even have megabytes of really fast output buffer hooked into a speedy bus, while helpful people have already put fast software pipelines in for graphics stuff. This is, also, without looking at GPUs, which quite possibly could do much of the modulation for you. They already do this with bitmap images (stretching, mixing etc). Why not with a sine wave? David [0] Or not modulated if you want a really boring constant tone [1] A resistor step-down DAC on a parallel port works just as well, albeit without the bandwidth or sample resolution. You can still get AFSK1200 out of it though. I get the idea you could whistle AFSK1200 if you were really desperate given the crap home-made hardware I managed to generate it from. [2] You do notice crap soundcards though, and where they have noise, and bad frequency response, and filters, and more such evilness. Anything onboard is probably going to be useless for this [3] If you really wanted you could mix them on the output, but you would have to filter the output of the mixer, which might defeat the purpose of an SDR. Not that you wouldn't want to filter anything you were transmitting anyway... [4] or possibly even as a couple of generic digital output lines, although this might be a bit CPU intensive for fast signalling, and not worth the effort From matt at ucc.asn.au Mon Nov 22 12:05:26 2004 From: matt at ucc.asn.au (Matt Johnston) Date: Mon Nov 22 12:05:39 2004 Subject: [URC] Using a SVGA card as part of a direct synthesis SDR? In-Reply-To: <20041121052715.GA1697@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> References: <20041121052715.GA1697@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> Message-ID: <20041122040526.GO249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> On Sun, Nov 21, 2004 at 01:27:15PM +0800, David Basden wrote: > Hi guys, > > Does anyone know much about how SVGA cards work? > > Specifically, i'm wondering if I can use the RAMDAC in a boring > SVGA card as an output for a software defined radio. > > People have been doing this for a long time with soundcards > (I played with this for a while, and it's pretty easy to generate > moderately low bandwidth stuff, such as AFSK1200, DTMF or Slow Scan > TV. You just generate a buffer with a modulated sine wave[0] in it > and throw it at your friendly local sound driver.[1]) A while back (like, at high school writing stuff in visual basic) I made a little program to display things on the screen (a modulated sine-wave), alternating between two patterns, and on the radio nearby I managed to get it to produce a few tones (I assume it was AM). Of course it was fairly rough, I was ignoring the blanking etc, and wasn't exactly driving a proper antenna or anything... I'm fairly sure more recently someone actually put some more developed software on the web somewhere to play a tune. Though I can't seem to find it (will google a bit more later). > Does anyone know if modern SVGA hardware is this flexible? Looking > at the XFree86 server, it seems to be so (given you can manually > specify timings and dotclocks). You even have megabytes of really > fast output buffer hooked into a speedy bus, while helpful people > have already put fast software pipelines in for graphics stuff. I reckon the hardware itself can probably do it, though getting raw data into the video card might be harder. Filling the entire screen on-the-fly is probably a bit difficult (?) though perhaps if you worked with textures already mapped into videocard memory and switched between them it could be promising? > This is, also, without looking at GPUs, which quite possibly could > do much of the modulation for you. They already do this with bitmap > images (stretching, mixing etc). Why not with a sine wave? Yeah, could be a go. Though I guess there might be some issues with GPU transforms applying to an area on the screen, as opposed to radio sine waves where you want the transformations to be continuous wrapping around the screen? Sounds like something fun to play with though :) Matt From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Mon Nov 22 13:11:09 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Mon Nov 22 13:10:28 2004 Subject: [URC] Using a SVGA card as part of a direct synthesis SDR? In-Reply-To: <20041122040526.GO249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> References: <20041121052715.GA1697@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> <20041122040526.GO249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> Message-ID: <20041122051108.GX7447@shikita.rcpt.to> On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 12:05:26PM +0800, Matt Johnston wrote: > A while back (like, at high school writing stuff in visual > basic) I made a little program to display things on the > screen (a modulated sine-wave), alternating between two > patterns, and on the radio nearby I managed to get it to > produce a few tones (I assume it was AM). Of course it was > fairly rough, I was ignoring the blanking etc, and wasn't > exactly driving a proper antenna or anything... Cool :) > > Does anyone know if modern SVGA hardware is this flexible? Looking > > at the XFree86 server, it seems to be so (given you can manually > > specify timings and dotclocks). You even have megabytes of really > > fast output buffer hooked into a speedy bus, while helpful people > > have already put fast software pipelines in for graphics stuff. > > I reckon the hardware itself can probably do it, though > getting raw data into the video card might be harder. > Filling the entire screen on-the-fly is probably a bit > difficult (?) though perhaps if you worked with textures > already mapped into videocard memory and switched between > them it could be promising? Getting the raw data to the card quickly is surprisingly easy if you use an existing library, because GraphicsGeeks have already optimised the software and hardware pipelines to do just that. This is assuming that you can convince the library to switch off blanking etc. > > This is, also, without looking at GPUs, which quite possibly could > > do much of the modulation for you. They already do this with bitmap > > images (stretching, mixing etc). Why not with a sine wave? > > Yeah, could be a go. Though I guess there might be some > issues with GPU transforms applying to an area on the > screen, as opposed to radio sine waves where you want the > transformations to be continuous wrapping around the screen? I wonder if you could convince it that the framebuffer was 1 pixel high and very, very wide. > Sounds like something fun to play with though :) Yeah :) David From matt at ucc.asn.au Mon Nov 22 13:12:41 2004 From: matt at ucc.asn.au (Matt Johnston) Date: Mon Nov 22 13:12:53 2004 Subject: [URC] Using a SVGA card as part of a direct synthesis SDR? In-Reply-To: <20041122051108.GX7447@shikita.rcpt.to> References: <20041121052715.GA1697@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> <20041122040526.GO249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> <20041122051108.GX7447@shikita.rcpt.to> Message-ID: <20041122051241.GP249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 01:11:09PM +0800, David Basden wrote: > On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 12:05:26PM +0800, Matt Johnston wrote: > > A while back (like, at high school writing stuff in visual > > basic) I made a little program to display things on the > > screen (a modulated sine-wave), alternating between two > > patterns, and on the radio nearby I managed to get it to > > produce a few tones (I assume it was AM). Of course it was > > fairly rough, I was ignoring the blanking etc, and wasn't > > exactly driving a proper antenna or anything... > > Cool :) Ah, found the software I was thinking of: http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/ > I wonder if you could convince it that the framebuffer was 1 > pixel high and very, very wide. Hmmmm. Might work? Matt From davidb-0624 at rcpt.to Mon Nov 22 13:22:59 2004 From: davidb-0624 at rcpt.to (David Basden) Date: Mon Nov 22 13:22:16 2004 Subject: [URC] Using a SVGA card as part of a direct synthesis SDR? In-Reply-To: <20041122051241.GP249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> References: <20041121052715.GA1697@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> <20041122040526.GO249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> <20041122051108.GX7447@shikita.rcpt.to> <20041122051241.GP249100@morwong.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> Message-ID: <20041122052259.GY7447@shikita.rcpt.to> On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 01:12:41PM +0800, Matt Johnston wrote: > On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 01:11:09PM +0800, David Basden wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 12:05:26PM +0800, Matt Johnston wrote: > > > A while back (like, at high school writing stuff in visual > > > basic) I made a little program to display things on the > > > screen (a modulated sine-wave), alternating between two > > > patterns, and on the radio nearby I managed to get it to > > > produce a few tones (I assume it was AM). Of course it was > > > fairly rough, I was ignoring the blanking etc, and wasn't > > > exactly driving a proper antenna or anything... > > > > Cool :) > > Ah, found the software I was thinking of: > http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/ Wacky. Deliberate van Eck phreaking. He's using the monitor to radiate, which has got to be really ugly on the spurious emmissions :) There's also an apparent link to Van Eck's (aparrently deliberately crippled from meory) paper. I thought that the US government classified it? > > I wonder if you could convince it that the framebuffer was 1 > > pixel high and very, very wide. > > Hmmmm. Might work? Yeah, it might be pushing my luck. Worth a look though :) David From basded01 at tartarus.uwa.edu.au Fri Nov 26 18:41:31 2004 From: basded01 at tartarus.uwa.edu.au (David Basden) Date: Fri Nov 26 18:42:12 2004 Subject: [URC] Amateur Licence Study Workshop - This Sunday Message-ID: <20041126104131.GA7820@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> Hi everyone The workshop URC is holding to study for your Amateur Radio licence is on this Sunday afternoon. If you want to start learning the theory around people trying to do the same, with people around to ask questions of, this will be a good thing to show up to. We originally planned to have it at UCCamp, but UCC are planning on being out of there before midday, so we're going to move it to Cameron Hall. We're aiming for starting around 12pm, but if you can't make it until later and want to, mail the list. Unfortunately, the CPU/motherboard on my mailserver died earlier this week, so I don't have access to email apart from at my Uni address. If you need to get hold of me, drop me an email at basded01@tartarus.uwa.edu.au, or phone me. Cheers, David