Category Archives: Networking

Networking

Over The Air Television

Some time back I did the math and decided that full blown cable or satellite TV just wasn’t worth it. High speed internet, Hulu, Netflix, and Sling are still way cheaper per year than cable TV. Also if there is that one or two shows that you can’t live without in this day and age you can buy them on Amazon Prime or Apple TV and it is still cheaper than a year of cable TV.

Of course now that broadcast, over the air television is transmitted in digital you can improve your content simply by sticking an antenna up. I’ve run the gamut of indoor amplified antennas and suffice to say I’m in a poor region for broadcast TV. I can typically get 7 or so channels at my home, 6 of which are mostly worthless. So I opted to get a Mohu Sky 60 Antenna to stick in my attic.

Right away I got a slew of channels including the two major players I needed. Fox and CBS (FOOTBALL!)

Although they claim the Mohu Sky 60 is omni-directional it is very much a directional antenna. and unfortunately for me positioning it to get great reception on CBS screws up Fox. Still I’m convinced there is a magic location that will pull it all in with ease. I know it is there, because I’ve found it several times however when I mount the antenna the magic spot loses its magic. The Mohu Sky 60 also comes with a preamplifier WHICH IS WORTHLESS. The antenna performs better in every respect without it (in my application).

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FreeNAS Server

A few years back I built a home server based on information mostly obtained from this blog  I never really knew how bad I needed this server until it went down about a month ago with a motherboard failure.   My server was built with these components:

And  of course I’m using the operating system FreeNAS which is free and is pretty much the best Server OS there is.  Yeah, that’s debatable, I know.

I also use something called OpenMediaVault on the little teeny tiny piece of the server you can see in the right side of the picture.

The little piece of the server to the left is my backup to the backup server. Can’t be too safe!

 

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RSPDuo Running over Network on RSP_TCP

I just bought an RSPDuo from SDRPlay and I wanted to see if I could hook it up so I could access it from the network just like I do my Airspy HF+ on SpyServer.

So you dig around on Google and you find out that sure enough you can however it wasn’t as easy as it appeared. Believe me, it never is.  I am running my RSPDuo from an Ubuntu 18.04 laptop.  In SDRPlay’s defense they have a Raspberry Pi image on their downloads page and this stuff may already be configured. I won’t swear to that though. Laptops have a hell of a lot more OOMPH than a Raspberry Pi though and I just like messing around in Linux.

Lets get started:

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Making Your Refrigerator SMART

I have an old refrigerator in my garage which I suspected was a power hog.  I bought a Sonoff S31 Power Monitoring outlet and flashed it with custom firmware (Tasmota) and blogged about that here.

I’ve since figured out you can do a WHOLE LOT MORE with a Tasmota flashed Sonoff S31. I figure there are two important things you’d want to know about an old refrigerator.

  1. Is it running?
  2. Has the door been left open?

Both answers can be tackled with home automation.  I use the EXCELLENT program HomeAssistant.  So let’s get to it, shall we?

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Running an RTL-SDR Off Of A Router

An RTL_TCP server first of all is a taking a USB Software Defined Radio, RTL-SDR, and setting it up as a server for receiving radio signals within the frequency parameters of the SDR device which can them be connected to from anywhere.  For example an RTL-SDR Version 3  operates from about 500 kHz (with direct sampling enabled) to about 1.7 GHz.

So if you set up the server you can be anywhere provided your server allows incoming connections to the internet or you can access your network via VPN, as I do, and connect back to it and hear all the local radio stations or radio signals that interest you.

What good is that?  Maybe there is a radio program you like but the station doesn’t stream.  Maybe you want to hear your kid playing his high school football game broadcast on local radio.  Additionally, maybe you set a microphone and transmitter up in your home as a security device (such as a baby monitor).  Maybe you want to listen to the local weather broadcast or maybe you are a scanner junkie and like hearing your local police scanner.  Whatever.  There are lots of reasons.

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pfSense Hardware Firewall

I am always blathering on about network security. The only real security is a firewall. Your router that you bought on Amazon or at Walmart is NOT secure. Look at the box. It says it is FAST. It doesn’t say it is secure. Furthermore there is a sticker on the bottom of it with a WiFi password that looks like this:

098798te6rfghjvhfydtHY(UYGIGUYTTUI^(*&)(&*(^*&T*&%TGYIKHLNLKL

That’s awesome. It really is.

So then you plug your router into the cable modem which attaches it to the INTERNET via direct physical connection. Guess what the password is for that direct physical connection?

Answer: password

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