Hands-on with SDR tools
In this section, we will look at the most common tools used for SDR and analysis of radio signals. We will begin by getting started with the very basic tools and then use that to extract more information from radio packets.
Getting ready
To perform SDR-based security research, the following tools will be required:
- Hardware:
- RTL-SDR
- Software:
- GQRX
- GNU Radio companion
To install the tools, the following repositories have the best build instructions.
Note
Instead of installing from apt-get
, ensure that you build GNU Radio companion to get a better experience of working with SDR.
Note
SDR security research is also dependent on the performance of your system. Make sure that you have enough RAM allocated to the virtual machine you are performing these tasks in. If possible, use an Ubuntu instance as host to get the best experience.
How to do it...
An RTL-SDR is one of the best devices to get started with in the world of SDR. It's originally a TV tuner dongle with the Realtek chipset...