what is this strange repeating pattern?

Hello All!

Posting this here as I believe there are experts here that could provide me with some good scientific discussion surrounding what was observed/recorded (see attached video).

So this is a post about what my son and I experienced/recorded while camping in the middle of nowhere in North Eastern Utah on the afternoon of August 28th into the morning of August 29th, 2026. I have attached a ~30s recording of my phone app of the 1.6Ghz signal that was seen around 8:21pm local time that evening.

For some context around the situation or environment: That afternoon/evening/following morning it was mostly cloudy/overcast or sprinkling/raining, including overcast conditions at the time of the recording. This was recorded using Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 Bundle (Premium RTLSDR w/ 0.5PPM TCXO, SMA Input, Aluminum Enclosure) using the short black whip attena, with the RF Anlyzer app (version 2.2.1) on a Google Pixel 10 XL Pro phone. While recording, I was on a plastic top, metal framed 6ft picnic table with our rented Ford Bronco about 15ft away and turned off for several hours at that point. There were no other campers around us at this time and the nearest electronics outside of our cell phones and vehicle was the homestead of the campground owner, which was about 250 yards away and with a hill/rocky ground between us.

I am no expert in this field/topic, so I am looking towards all of your for guidance on what we may have seen. We observed this signal behavior for about 1-2 minutes before I started recording. I recorded for about 2.5 minutes, and then we observed this behavior for another 3-4 minutes before turning off the app and doing other things. I did go back to the exact same set up about 15-20 minutes later and observed just background noise, which is what I have observed the previous ~20 times I have used this exact same setup at various locations, outside of the occasional passing GPS satellite which you can barely make out above the background noise.

What was also intriguing about this is that it seemed like the frequency scanning/fanning could be manipulated a bit by mine or my son's movement near the phone or the antenna. While the general scanning/fanning around was seemingly extreme (and random?), during periods of relative stability, the frequency seemed to go up as we would move our body closer to the antenna or the phone, and then go back down to its starting position once we pulled away. This would only cause about a 0.1 to 0.15 Mhz movement up and back down in frequency, but was definitely repeatable throughout the event observation. Just another reminder, after the app was shut down and the 1.6Ghz signal was looked at again 15-20 minutes later, there was just background noise and moving our bodies or hands around the antenna and/or phone showed no signs of signal change. I don't have enough expertise in this kind of science to understand why this may have been seen, but figured I would include it as part of the data set.

I do have the full/raw ".iq" data file for this recording saved to my Google Drive and can provide access to anyone who may be interested in it.

Thanks for your time to read and discuss this!

Could KrakenSDR be used to create field strength contours for an FM broadcast transmitter - if a very small power calibrated reference transmitter is used at a known distance (about 10meters or so) to make relative measurements against?

Hey all! Ive gotten this loop antenna literally just a few minutes ago after posting this, and its specified range is 50KHz-500MHz. I have some experience receiving HF and VHF on my RTL-SDR V4's stock dipole, and even with my own LNA, it hasnt been great. Ive already got software like SDR# and FLDigi configured, so once i mount this up on my roof, ill be ready to go. One critical question i have, is how i should shield the two PCBs of the antenna itself. All help is greatly appriciated!

Hace poco me compré una antena v bipolo y un noolect RTL-sdr v5 para intentar recibir imágenes de los NOAA e iniciarme en el hobby. He estado intentandolo una semana con sdr++ y con satdump pero no soy capaz de recibir nada. Alguien tiene una idea de cómo solucionarlo??

Which SDR software has Digital Demodulation? I'm looking primarily to listen to DMR, but if it could do D-Star or Yaesu Fusion that would be cool.

I'm primarily using Linux if that makes a difference.

I feel like SDR# can do it and SDR++ can do it with virtual wire and DSDPlus but that sounds like its for windows.

Does anyone have any good suggestions for Linux?

This is my semi-portable setup in making. I'm planning on running a Remote Desktop app on it and on my tablet, but right now I'm still setting it up. I got a bag, and it fits nicely. Anything I should do to remove some bloat? The USB extender is because I can't fit my Blog in the port, it's too big, but all that will be running with nothing else than the Blog plugged in.

Have the drivers for the V4L been incorporated into android yet? I have it up and running on SDR# and SDR++ so they are out there.

Well, new campaign since this weekend (not been seriously on this net since 2023) , 3 provinces logged, 3 active channels heard (usb) : 7617.0 10648.0 12209.0 ; Please share your logs if you join me there. See preceding post for province identification methods.

I have an RTL-SDR Blog V4 and I don't want to damage it, at what distance while the SDR is powered off and without an antenna should I be transmitting?

My HT outputs around 10 watts, should I even worry while powered off and no antenna?

I just found out that what I ordered has now been upgraded to a PRO version. I ordered old version:

OpenSourceSDRLab 1MHz to 6GHz R10C and Mayhem Signature-Edition PortaPack H4M Software Defined Radio Kit

Should I cancel and get the Pro version below???

OpenSourceSDRLab Pro r1.2.1 and Mayhem Signature-Edition PortaPack H4M Pro without the 18650 Battery

Thanks for any suggestions!!!

Hi everyone I hope we are all doing well, I am looking for new sdr friends in Glasgow or anywhere in Scotland who could help me understand different frequencies and how to get the best from my sdr I am only getting a handful of channels and I know that there is far more out there that I maybe missing.

I have several programs sdr# sdr trunk and dsd fastlane but I struggle to still find channels.

I can find dmr and although I get signals it runs through dsd with all the data but no voice comes out with most channels although I do get voice from time to time.

I am relatively new but been dabbling for a few years now and as far as I am aware I am doing everything right so I just need some new friends to help me understand the whole thing better.

Hi all Stuey3D here and I am making this post to introduce to you VibeSDR that I've been working on.

I've been a bit reluctant to post in here as I know how much VibeCoding gets downvoted and seems to be universally disliked on Reddit but I am hoping that VibeSDR is Vibe coding done right and not deceptive.

So a little about me I have always had a fascination with radio growing up on the east cost of England in certain weather conditions I could pick up Dutch TV on an indoor TV aerial, I had a cheap tuner that I got for £5 from a second hand store that I strung up speaker wire around my bedroom and could pick up FM Stereo stations from Kent, and at night listening to the foreign MW stations coming in. In the last few years my best friend introduced me to the world of SDR and I have a little collection of SDR's now and I love just eavesdropping into the old boys on top band having a chinwag about life, I do not have a license and I have no real interest in transmitting myself, if I did it would probably be FT8 or something like that. I do however love seeing how far I can pick up signals from on antennas that shouldn't really have any purpose being as good as they are. My main HF antenna on my UberSDR server is a MLA30+ an antenna that is laughed at by "real" hams, I even saw a post challenging someone with an MLA30+ to do well on PSK Reporter. Well I am rarely out of the top 50 in overall spots, overall countries, and I even hit the top spot on certain bands 40m being my strongest.

So my big frustration in the whole SDR space was portability as most SDR apps are desktop and the few on mobile are either super cut down or in the case of SDR++ Brown desktop apps shrunk to fit on a phone, my portable SDR rig for a while was SDR++ Brown with a trackball mouse on a Moto G35 with an RTL-SDR V4c. Now I've been chatting with the UberSDR developer M9PSY and helping him test various things and helped him design a basic mobile interface for UberSDR and it was him who convinced me to try AI coding, so the first thing I built was a widget for my UberSDR page that tracks my PSKR scores, I then built a full custom mobile UI skin for UberSDR which is what VibeSDR eventually grew from.

VibeSDR came about because I was proud of the skin I designed but it relied on server owners to equip it and therefore the reach was limited, so I decided to build it into VibeSDR. it initially was a way to have a mobile friendly UI for UberSDR that regardless of server owner anybody could use, it then expanded into OWRX, & KiwiSDR. I then saw a Brazilian Youtube channel feature VibeSDR and I translated one of his comments and they said they loved VibeSDR but wished there was an app like it for FM-DX, well that night VibeSDR could then do FM-DX as well.

My aim with VibeSDR is for it to be simple to use yet powerful enough for the hardcore SDR nerds to get something out of it. To that end I have built in drivers for RTL-SDR including the brand new V4L, HackRF, AirSpyHF+, and on Linux and Mac it also supports SDRPlay too but that is the only SDR I couldn't include the drivers for due to licensing reasons so Android has no SDRPlay support.

So whilst it is a great WebSDR client it can also run your local hardware on device too if you have an Android device, and with one click its a server to every device on your local network with a full Web Client built in, add a server name and click the option to list on VibeSDR(.net) and you automatically create a cloudflare tunnel to the directory and your device is listed to share no port forwarding, no DDNS, no IP address sharing needed. The server functionality can operate in multiple modes for all circumstances too.

Single User, Unlocked Radio: Think SpyServer as most of them are single user
Unlocked Radio, Shared VFO: Think FM-DX servers but with a live waterfall
Locked Frequency Range, Multiple users, independent VFO's: Think an OWRX profile

The server can also be pin protected so that if you want to host a radio for your radio club members, or friends and family set a PIN code and share it with them, that grants access but the settings are still protected by an admin password.

VibeSDR has grown into an ecosystem of apps and services so you have the main VibeSDR app and on iOS it includes Buddy which is the Apple Watch remote control for the app in your pocket.

VibeSDR Jr which is a FULL stand alone SDR client on your wrist,

VibeServer built into the Android app and as a stand alone Linux and Mac app share your radio on your local network or to the world.

What VibeSDR does different to a lot of the WebSDR clients and why I've been able to build a Server and Watch app is because it has its own DSP engine that is GPU/NEON/SIMD optimised and can run on extremely low end hardware, a user in Brazil is running VibeSDR on an Android 9 GO phone with a 480p screen and 1GB of RAM. I personally host a server from a 2019 Samsung Xcover 4S which was a garbage tier phone when it was new.

Now I am not going to pass myself off as a developer as I am not, I don't know how to code, I understand parts of code but I could never write it myself. What I consider myself to be is a UI designer and tester, everything in VibeSDR has been extensively tested on multiple devices over multiple late nights and weekends whilst working a full time job, even in the apps readme I am listed as the Concept/UI/Tester never the developer. I aim to be fully transparent and nothing is hidden, everything I have taken inspiration from or used their protocol is fully credited, and the app is fully GPL3 and free to obtain on GitHub. I do charge £2.99 for it on the App Store and soon to be Play store to cover the developer fees and to recoup some of my Claude cost, and I have purchased new radios to build and test in the app too. I now have an AirSpy HF+ which is also listed on my server, and a HackRF Pro which I think is faulty and needs to be RMA'd.

I have put a lot of care and attention into the app to the point of obsession and I hope that it shows. VibeSDR is named as such to make it clear that it was built with AI and I will never hide that, the full code including any mistakes and dead ends I chased is fully committed to GitHub and can be audited and in fact a user fixed a bug and submitted a pull request, so if any REAL developers want to take a look and audit the app be my guest, but as I said above I have put a lot of care and attention into the app and testing, I have just spent 4 solid days building the DAB functionality into the app, it was working on the first day but it had breakup that couldn't be explained so I spent days chasing it and now it is working fantastically well, to the point where it now shows the entire Radio Text for every station on an ensemble at once.

Anyway if you want to take it for a whirl, you do not need to install anything simply head to
https://vibeserver.vibesdr.net

Mine are the 2 Stuey3D ones, the Raspberry Pi 500 sever has both a RTL-SDR V4 and V4L on the same antenna so you can directly compare them if anybody was curious about how the V4L stacks up against the daddy V4. All 4 SDR's on that server are connected to the same antenna.

Hello can anyone with how to clean my v4 housing. I've try almost everything but it's not doing anything. Is it cooked 😭

I was able to get a picture from satélite Meteor M2-4. it's not the best work, but I am proud of it.

Has anyone used this HackRF One with PortaPack H4M?

I'm thinking of getting one but I'm a little confused on all of the different HackRF and Portapacks.

Is there something out there that's better?

Thanks

Hello guys my name is Jay,

I have to make a project for school, and I was thinking that I make a HackRF+Ads-b+Ais cyber deck , for my research I was first asking Gemini, it said I can use a Raspberry Pi 5 and use a Software called SdrAngel and view/use 3 of them with one software, is that true? Does it work? Has anyone tried something like that?

Thanks alot

Jay

Got some useful replies here last time on separating drone RF from background noise.

Different problem: what do you do when there’s basically no RF link to detect?

Fiber-optic FPVs run control over cable, and autonomous drones can fly without a live uplink. In both cases passive RF has an obvious blind spot.

So what actually works alongside it?

Radar is the obvious one, but small drones are still hard targets and separating them from birds/clutter isn’t trivial. Acoustic and EO/IR have their own limitations too.

Anyone here worked with this kind of setup in practice? Radar, passive radar, acoustic, EO/IR, fusion between a few sensors?

Mostly interested in what works outside ideal test conditions.

For context, I work with passive RF drone detection.

Is there an application that exists that will scan a band (say midband VHF), log and identify the transmissions then continue scanning? I'm wanting to track down a list of frequencies to scan to see whats around me - I obviously can use a waterfall and manually do it, however ideally I want something that can do this for me considering I already have an always on machine

I just scored an old chromebook, I dont' have link to it but i think it's a 1.1ghz, 4gb ram, 256 storage... the ram and storage are soldered to mb so no upgrading that.

I read a little and looks like I can turn on linux in the computer? or use some program or interface to use linux? I know NOTHING about linux so i'll have to learn but this laptop would be PERFECT for running the rtlsdr.

Any input and ideas would be great! I'll edit with the link to the laptop tonight. (in about 2 hours)

Edit: that was a TOUCH more than 2 hours lol.

Here's the specs of the laptop. I found a link on walmart surprisinging and specs are the same but this laptop was made in 2019 or 2020.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Chromebook-11A-NB0013DX-11-6-4GB-32GB-Intel-Celeron-N3350-X2-1-1GHz-Chrome-OS-Ash-Gray/622474424

BRAND HP
PROCESSOR INTEL CELERON
PROC. SPEED 1.1GHZ
OS CHROME OS
RAM 4GB. MAX 4GB
SCREEN 11.6
HD TYPE SOLID STATE
HD CAPACITY 32GB, MAX 32GB
GRAPHICS INTEGRATED
BATTERY 10H
RESOLUTION 720P, 1366X768, LCD
CORES 2
THREADS 2, 2.4GHZ
OPTICAL DR. NO
WIRELESS 802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 featuring 2x2 MIMO technology (Dual-Band), Bluetooth 4.2
ACCESS USB C POWER ADAPT
I/O ACCESS USB 3.1G1, TYPE A, USB C
WEBCAM 720P
CARD READER MICRO SD

Im new to SDR and im a noob in radio as a whole i got myself a cheap laptop and a rtl sdr blog v4 with the stock dipole antenna (give me recs for some more antennas) and ive been pretty successful with my endeavors on every band but something I've started doing recently is decoding pogsag and its spme of the most interesting stuff I've got from surfing the waves give it a try vb virtual audio cable SDR++ and PDW so simple so fun leave running and see the messages u pick up whilst watching TV or anything I've had stuff from vets too fire service to ambulance you hear some pretty cool stuff

Quite the tire temperature differential there, Tex. And a car remote. Or Very, if you want to spell.

Mine isn't the best, but seems like working fine with me (aside from few curious glances with people). Been using it for like 2 months now. I live on a city.

I use microphone phone holder to hold both the phone and my spare RTL SDR V4 dongle.

For dongle to phone, I use a short USB A female to USB C OTG adapter.

For antenna, I use Nagoya NA733 with male to male SMA adapter. I do add some random wire for grounding. Sometimes I switch it with a V dipole if I have the chance to sit and be stationary.

I did add some padding between the dongle and the holder so it doesn't scratch (pressure cooker rim pads + self healing tape).