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Mystery signal from a helicopter

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11–20 of 83 posts

Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#11
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Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#14
post #8

I wonder how much audio compression the signal can go through before getting lost, and if joint-stereo affected it. Might have to check out the data myself :) Props to Oona.

Given that most audio compression techniques are perceptual, and the signal here falls into the "most important" 300hz to 3.4khz range that gets special attention in human hearing, I'd guess it is pretty resilient to run of the mill compressed audio codecs.

Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#15
post #5

Nice bit of reverse-engineering, and an impressive hack from whoever built the system.

Not really a hack. Subcarriers are how they added color to TV, stereo to FM radio, and so on. WWV/WWVH also sends machine-readable time codes at 100Hz like this.

Indeed--it was more of a hack sixty years ago perhaps. Since then, similar tricks have been used for closed captions, Dolby surround (the original kind), Radio Data System (which puts song names on your car dashboard via FM radio), TV Second Audio Program (listen to shows dubbed in a second language, just press the SAP button on your ancient high-end TV!)....

Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#16

I love Oona Räisänen's blog. She's my hero. She combines a love of figuring stuff out with lots of fun hacks. And when I read her blog it makes me happy to see someone with that joy of uncovering mysteries.

You've probably already seen it, but in case you haven't: her talk at 30C3 was excellent and is worth a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-2k6TMPMRo

Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#17
post #6

Oona's work is always amazing. Loads of interesting hardware stuff in her blog. I wish I would be better at some mechanical engineering/electrical engineering stuff, my work is mostly web-related or big data stuff, never really get my hands dirty :(

You can basically reverse those terms for me. I'm a mech engineer who wished he knew more/was better at the web-dev / big data stuff.

Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#18
post #16

I love Oona Räisänen's blog. She's my hero. She combines a love of figuring stuff out with lots of fun hacks. And when I read her blog it makes me happy to see someone with that joy of uncovering mysteries.

You've probably already seen it, but in case you haven't: her talk at 30C3 was excellent and is worth a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-2k6TMPMRo

Been there, was cool indeed! If you aren't planning to already, you should come to the 31c3 :)

Re: Mystery signal from a helicopter

#20
Amazing!!! I would have just dismissed it as static interference, and not even think twice.

Hmmm, makes me think twice about the beeping sounds I hear when my phone is right next to my radio. I know it's data being transmitted/received, but I wonder if it can be deciphered in this manner.

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