Month: September 2017

iPhone can finally read NFC tags!

Good morning!!

 

With the release of iOS 11 this morning, Apple has finally caught up with the NFC game and is allowing users to read NDEF formatted NFC tags !

They’re still a bit behind in that, you can only READ tags, not write them, and you have to specifically install an app to read them, the OS doesn’t natively support them.

However in my quick testing, for my implant, the read performance is excellent!

 

I can get a 100% hit rate and very fast responses.

 

Its very easy to locate where to hold the phone, as the antenna is the top back of the device.

 

 

Heres a video of it in action, notice how easy I hit the right spot ?

 

Ill do more tests as I can but as I don’t have an iPhone 7 or later device and for some reason the iPhone 6 apparently does not get NFC unlocked ?? it will be slow.

 

Im pretty impressed so far it will be good to see native support in the OS to allow Apple users to interact with the world just like us Android users have been able to for years!

Setting up RTL-SDR in 2017

Years back I discovered RTL-SDR, that used very cheap USB TV tuners to run Software Defined Radio applications.

Back then I found it super easy to setup,

 

You just download ‘SDR#’ and run the installer, then you’re good to go!

More recently though, AirSpy selling their own SDR products, I recall having more difficulty setting it all up..

 

So let’s give it a shot here today.

Heading over to the AirSpy downloads page

I downloaded the ‘Windows SDR Software Package’ which seems to be similar to the old version, containing SDR#, ADSB Spy etc.
This downloaded a familiar looking sdrsharp-x86.zip file

Extracting this zip gives a familiar folder structure, with an install-rtlsdr.bat file, perhaps it hasn’t changed much after all? Not sure why I seemed to have so much problems last time…
I fired up Zadig as admin after it had downloaded and selected Options > List All Devices so that I could find my RTL device.

And with that its time to launch SDRSharp.exe !

The first thing ill do is pop into the options gear up the top there and change the device to RTL-SDR (USB). Then back into options and ensure the correct device is selected and the RG Gain is turned up a little.

And with that, we’re in!

It all seems to be working fine. I did a frequency correction of 3ppm and got it centered on a carrier wave.
Im now able to use this to identify which frequencies are in use around 500mhz so that I can fix up some wireless microphones that are complaining about interference!

 

It was much easier than last time. Not sure why I had so much trouble….