DIY

Sounds like fun.

Last year I picked up one of those cheap DVB-T receivers and played around with RTL-SDR a bit.

Was able to pick up a lot of ADS-B traffic (I live near an airport) which was really cool to throw on a map.

Was able to get readings from this little temp/humidity sensor that came with the house (base station is long gone). Also was able to detect when my wireless doorbell button was pressed as well as a few other odd wireless gadgets.

Got readings from every water meter in the area except mine. Either it wasn't being decodes properly, or almost everyone has a leak. Lol. Still trying to figure that out.

The only thing I failed at was getting a reading from my electric meter. Nothing seems to support it, and online resources came up dry for that model.

I did all that just for fun, but the next step, when I get around to it, is putting together some scripts to reconfigure the radio in a loop to read devices that worked and MQTT the data to HomeAssistant.

This article convinced me to finally buy one

That is quite a lot of interesting experiments, thanks for introducing. :)

I'm inclined to add one more:

51: monitor the radio spectrum for drones (and if their signature looks hostile, warn people about them) - there's a DIY recipe for a monitoring station out there somewhere, and some Ukrainian guys scan their sky using HackRF

SDR is definitely a technology worth learning. I'm already a happy user of RTL-SDR, but if I want to really see what my WiFi is doing, I should get a HackRF eventually too. (Note: WiFi is too fast to intercept without loss, except with another WiFi card, unless a slower bitrate is deliberately chosen.)

Still trying to get mine to read my water meter - I can see all of the condos around me, but not mine 🙃

Id be curious to try SDR. Will anyone experienced in it outline a simple ‘hello world’ type project a tech-savvy SDR noob could try to get started? The article is good but I guess I am seeking insights and discussion on the best starting point.

I have a dormant project (because my sdr died and I need a new one, and after moving house I need to build a proper antenna) that involves listening to maritime MF DSC calls. (8414.5MHz), and plot the call on a map. These DSC calls are mostly distress and similar, so yhey don't happen often, but the TX power of ships that send them gives these calls such a long range that you should be able to pick them up almost anywhere.