Perhaps the most famous of software-defined radios is the RTL-SDR, which is very cheap because it’s a digital TV receiver that’s been pressed into service delivering raw I and Q …. WiFi Router Does Software-Defined Radio. But the RTL-SDR is certainly not the only chipset that can do this, and today we have a new one.
The MediaTek MT7996 radio chip in the Gemtek W1700K WiFi 7 router can serve as a very competent SDR receiver, and here’s [h0m3us3r] with the code to make it stream over Ethernet to a Linux machine with a web server, through the device’s SoC. The radio works on the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz bands, depending upon which version of the device — and thus which radio chip — you have. These may not be entirely useful to many who use lower bands, and given that a similar hack has been found for ESP32 radios on 2.4 GHz it’s likely a demand will arise for a receive up-converter.
Until then, you can look at WiFi packets in a waterfall view to your heart’s content. Since more and more devices now incorporate a radio, we hope that more such undocumented raw streaming modes will be found, and that we’ll see some other new SDRs.
Discover more from ChuckysCarnage
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
