Intercept receivers (was Re: Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway)

[Peter Gutmann]

wirelesswarrior at Safe-mail.net <wirelesswarrior at Safe-mail.net> writes:

>For example, Ettus' USRPs, covering VHF to 6 GHz or so, starting under $1000,
>that not long ago were in the $10,000s. The HackRF (which some have
>complained is little more than an IF strip) effectively covering down to
>below 10 Mhz is only $300 (though its performance, due to only 8-bit ADC, is
>not in the same league as the 16-bit USRPs). If some hardware hacker were to
>deliver a 14-16 bit ADC daughter board (there are afforadble chips offering
>up to 60M samples/sec) for the HackRF (it is provisioned to accept one) it
>could substantially improve its use.

The problem with the HackRF (and other USB-based devices) is the bandwidth of
the USB connection, it's not that the HackRF hardware can't handle it, it's
that you can't get that much data to the PC.

(I have a HackRF - I needed a cheap way to track down some odd RFI issues -
and it's a pretty cool piece of hardware for the money, but, as I mentioned
earlier, you do get what you're paying for.  If I could make a wishlist, it'd
be nice to have a rev.2 with some work done on the front- end...).

Peter.