Ham Radio Gets Embedded RTL-SDR

September 3, 2019 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

We usually think of the RTL-SDR as a low-cost alternative to a “real” radio, but this incredible project spearheaded by [Rodrigo Freire] shows that the two classes of devices don’t have to be mutually exclusive. After nearly 6 months of work, he’s developed and documented a method to integrate a RTL-SDR Blog V3 receiver directly into the Yaesu FT-991 transceiver.

The professional results of the hack are made possible by the fact that the FT-991 already had USB capability to begin with. More specifically, it had an internal USB hub that allowed multiple internal devices to appear to the computer as a sort of composite device.

Unfortunately, the internal USB hub only supported two devices, so the first order of business for [Rodrigo] was swapping out the original USB2512BI hub IC with a USB2514BI that offered four ports. With the swap complete, he was able to hang the RTL-SDR device right on the new chip’s pins.

Of course, that was only half of the battle. He had a nicely integrated RTL-SDR from an external standpoint, but to actually be useful, the SDR would need to tap into the radio’s signal. To do this, [Rodrigo] designed a custom PCB that pulls the IF signal from the radio, feed it into an amplifier, and ultimately pass it to the SDR. The board uses onboard switches, controlled by the GPIO ports on the RTL-SDR Blog V3, for enabling the tap and preamplifier.

In the video after the break, you can see [Rodrigo] demonstrate his modified FT-991. This actually isn’t the first time somebody has tapped into their Yaesu with a software defined radio, though this is surely the cleanest install we’ve ever seen.

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RuneScape GBA Controller Is A Nostalgic Mash-Up

September 2, 2019 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

For gamers, the early 2000s certainly stand out as a memorable era. The dawn of the 21st century ushered in the sixth generation of home video game consoles, with Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all releasing their systems within a few years of each other. Nintendo also released their Game Boy Advance at around the same time, representing a minor revolution for mobile gaming. On the PC front, a free-to-play MMORPG called RuneScape was redefining people’s expectations of browser-based software.

Now, thanks to modern technology and the expert guidance of [TiKevin83], these varied bits of video game history can be used in conjunction for maximum rose-tinting effect. Using homebrew software on the GameCube and a healthy collection of wires and adapters, the GBA can be used as a controller for your adventures through the realm of Gielinor. After nearly two decades, the dreams of gamers everywhere have come true.

Well, that might be a stretch. In fact, we’d wager that nobody in human history has ever looked at the GBA and thought it would be a particularly good controller for an MMORPG. Watching the video after the break, it’s not hard to see why. Using the handheld system’s digital pad to control the mouse in RuneScape looks to be precisely as clunky as you’d imagine. But of course, that’s hardly the point.

So how is it accomplished? A homebrew tool for the GameCube’s “Game Boy Player” accessory allows the GBA, when connected to the console via the appropriate adapter cable, to mimic a standard controller. Once the GBA is running in this mode, it can then be connected to the computer using a Wii U to USB adapter. Finally, the program JoyToKey is used to map the GBA’s buttons to mouse and keyboard input for “Old School” RuneScape.

If you’d like to do something similar but aren’t quite committed enough to collect up all the Nintendo-branded ephemera this method requires, you may be interested in this DIY adapter that allows the venerable GBA to be used as a standard Bluetooth controller.

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The Gorgeous Hardware We Can’t Take Our Eyes Away From

August 30, 2019 by Tom Nardi 1 Comment

High resolution digital cameras are built into half of the devices we own (whether we want them or not), so why is it still so hard to find good pictures of all the incredible projects our readers are working on? In the recently concluded Beautiful Hardware Contest, we challenged you to take your project photography to the next level. Rather than being an afterthought, this time the pictures would take center stage. Ranging from creative images of personal projects to new ways of looking at existing pieces of hardware, the 100+ entries we received for this contest proved that there’s more beauty in a hacker’s parts bin than most of them probably realize.

As always, it was a struggle to narrow down all the fantastic entries to just a handful of winners. But without further adieu, let’s take a look at the photos that we think truly blurred the line between workbench and work of art:

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Kilopower: NASA’s Offworld Nuclear Reactor

August 28, 2019 by Tom Nardi 107 Comments

Here on Earth, the ability to generate electricity is something we take for granted. We can count on the sun to illuminate solar panels, and the movement of air and water to spin turbines. Fossil fuels, for all their downsides, have provided cheap and reliable power for centuries. No matter where you may find yourself on this planet, there’s a way to convert its many natural resources into electrical power.

But what happens when humans first land on Mars, a world that doesn’t offer these incredible gifts? Solar panels will work for a time, but the sunlight that reaches the surface is only a fraction of what the Earth receives, and the constant accumulation of dust makes them a liability. In the wispy atmosphere, the only time the wind could potentially be harnessed would be during one of the planet’s intense storms. Put simply, Mars can’t provide the energy required for a human settlement of any appreciable size.

The situation on the Moon isn’t much better. Sunlight during the lunar day is just as plentiful as it is on Earth, but night on the Moon stretches for two dark and cold weeks. An outpost at the Moon’s South Pole would receive more light than if it were built in the equatorial areas explored during the Apollo missions, but some periods of darkness are unavoidable. With the lunar surface temperature plummeting to -173 °C (-280 °F) when the Sun goes down, a constant supply of energy is an absolute necessity for long-duration human missions to the Moon.

Since 2015, NASA and the United States Department of Energy have been working on the Kilopower project, which aims to develop a small, lightweight, and extremely reliable nuclear reactor that they believe will fulfill this critical role in future off-world exploration. Following a series of highly successful test runs on the prototype hardware in 2017 and 2018, the team believes the miniaturized power plant could be ready for a test flight as early as 2022. Once fully operational, this nearly complete re-imagining of the classic thermal reactor could usher in a whole new era of space exploration.

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Secret Messages Could Be Hiding In Your Server Logs

August 28, 2019 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

[Ryan Flowers] writes in with a clever little hack that can allow you to hide data where nobody is going to go looking for it. By exploiting the fact that a web server will generally log all HTTP requests whether or not it’s valid, he shows how you can covertly send a message by asking the server for a carefully crafted fictitious URL.

We aren’t talking about requesting “yousuck.txt” from the server that hosts your least favorite website, either. As [Ryan] demonstrates, you can compress a text file, encode it with uuencode, and then send it line by line to the destination server with curl. He shows how the process, which he calls “CurlyTP” can be done manually on the command line, but it would be a simple matter of wrapping it up in a Bash script.

To get the message back, you just do the opposite. Use grep to find the lines in the log file that contain the encoded data, and then put them through uudecode to get the original text back. Finding the appropriate lines in the log file is made easier by prepending a prearranged keyword to the beginning of the URL requests. The keyword can be changed for each message to make things easier to keep track of.

If you’re still wondering why anyone would go through the trouble to do this, [Ryan] provides an excellent example: a covert “dead drop” where people could leave messages they’d rather not send through the usual channels. As long as the sender used a service to mask their true IP address, they could anonymously deliver messages onto the server without having to use any special software or protocol they might not have access to. Even the most restrictive firewalls and security measures aren’t likely to be scanning URLs for compressed text files.

We’ve seen web-based dead drops done with Python in the past, and even purpose built “PirateBoxes” that allow people to covertly exchange files, but we like how this method doesn’t require any special configuration on the server side. You should check your server logs, somebody might be trying to tell you something.

Trimmed Dreamcast Board Makes For Perfect Portable

August 27, 2019 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

In the last year or so we’ve been seeing an array of portable game system builds based around “trimmed” Wii motherboards which have literally been cut down to a fraction of their original size. It turns out that most of the board is dedicated to non-essential functions, with the core Wii system contained within one specific area that can be isolated with a steady hand. But as [Gman] shows in his latest build, the same concept can also be applied to the Sega Dreamcast.

But of course, there’s a bit more to it than just taking a hacksaw to a Dreamcast motherboard. [Gman] had to supplement the trimmed system with quite a bit of additional hardware, such as a power management board he originally designed for portable Wii projects.

Other components were specifically built for this project. For example there’s a custom PCB that handles emulating the Dreamcast controller using a PIC32MZ microcontroller. He’s also using a LM49450 to pull digital audio from the motherboard over I2S, completely bypassing the analog output.

While not currently functioning, [Gman] also included an SPI OLED display and the hardware necessary to emulate basic functionality of the system’s unique Visual Memory Unit (VMU) right in the front of the system. We’re looking forward to seeing him revisit this feature in the future when he’s got the software side of things worked out.

The Nintendo 2DS inspired enclosure is completely 3D printed. A Prusa i3 with textured PEI bed was used to achieve the gorgeous dappled look on the system’s front panel, while the buttons were done on a Form 2 SLA printer. With a mold made from the printed buttons, [Gman] was able to cast the final pieces using a variety of colors until he found a combination he was happy with.

If you’re not Team Sega and would rather hack up your own tiny versions of Nintendo’s hardware, look no further than this fully functional trimmed Wii built into an Altoids tin.

3D Printed Rover Enjoys Long Walks On The Beach

August 27, 2019 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

More than a few hackers have put in the considerable time and effort required to build a rover inspired by NASA’s robotic Martian explorers, but unfortunately even the most well funded home tinkerer can’t afford the ticket to send their creation offworld. So most of these builds don’t journey through anything more exciting than a backyard sandbox. Not that we can blame their creators, we think a homebrew rover will look just as cool in your living room as it would traipsing through a rock quarry.

But the DIY rover status quo clearly wasn’t sufficient for [Jakob Krantz], who decided the best way to test his new Curiosity-inspired rover was to let it frolic around on the beach for an afternoon. But judging by the video after the break, his beefy 3D printed bot proved to be more than up to the task; powering through wildly uneven terrain with little difficulty.

Beyond a few “real” bearings here and there, all of the key components for the rover are 3D printed. [Jakob] did borrow a couple existing designs, like a printable bearing he found on Thingiverse, but for the most part he’s been toiling away at the design in Fusion 360 and using images of the real Curiosity rover as his guide.

Right now, he’s controlling the rover with a standard 6 channel RC receiver. Four channels are mapped to the steering servos, and a fifth to the single electronic speed control that commands the six wheel motors. But he’s recently added an Arduino to the rover which will eventually be in charge of interpreting the RC commands. This will allow more complex maneuvers with fewer channels, such as the ability to rotate in place.

We’re proud to count our very own [Roger Cheng] among the rover wrangling hackers of the world. An entire community has sprung up around his six-wheeled Sawppy, and the knowledge gained during its design and construction could be applicable to any number of other projects.

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