The Wrew: Core Dump

Several weeks ago I posted about the FLIP Card business cards I'm having made.

I've invested heavily (time and some money) in the WrewHQ network over the last year, building out network capacity as well as adding new services as I work on various projects.

I'm admittedly a bit late to this party, but Framework Computers has finally gotten around to updating their Framework 16 with some new specs - and we finally get to see if they can hold true to their mission of upgrades that don't require a whole new lap…

Astute readers (all 2 of you) will notice that I've not posted much this week.

In late 2008, my dad and I decided to go on a road trip to parts of the country I'd never been before - out west.

ColonelPanic, the mind behind the drone detect devices I've been using to monitor for (and catch!)

My parents were in town visiting recently, and my dad transferred to me a large tranche of photos he'd taken over the last few years.

I wrote yesterday about the first order of the FLIP Card business card prototypes and how they did not work out as hoped because I screwed up the order itself.

After some consideration, I decided it was time to set up an account at Ko-Fi in the hopes that maybe someone somewhere will find the content I put out there to be valuable enough to kick over a few bucks.

When posting here, I think it's important to not just talk about what worked but also sometimes what went hilariously wrong - often times those are real learning opportunities and we shouldn't shy away from them at all, but embrace them and learn the less…

It's been a minute since I've written about my Mesh Drone Detector, the small project that combines an ESP32 and Heltec V3 to detect drones flying overhead, map the drone and the pilot's locations on a map, and - and this is the new part for me - send det…

Business cards are kind of archaic these days - I don't think I've had one for any of the last half dozen jobs - but can still be kinda interesting sometimes.

I don't see my parents that often, really just once or twice a year.

For the second weekend in a row we packed up the car and headed out of town.

With my interest in all things RF, it's not a huge surprise that I've been intrigued with the development of LoRA, specifically the Meshtastic and Mesh Core projects - both of which allow for sending short messages via long range mesh radio networks.

One of my goals for this year has been to, as much as possible, move away from services provided by big tech to alternatives that I self-host and maintain.

It's summer vacation for Family Wrew, which means taking a couple of short trips to get the Little Wrews out of the city and experiencing new things.

One of the things used heavily by society is the ever present search engine.

A couple of weeks ago I snagged a KrakenSDR to use in some projects where I want direction finding capability - but also to test out in a passive radar setup (the code for which can be found here).

A while back, when I started getting back into RF stuff, I got turned on to the idea of receiving satellite signals (and decoding them!).

A reference to the book Discworld by the late Sir Terry Pratchett, X-Clacks-Overhead is a geeky way to memorialize those you've lost (as long as you control a webserver...).

I discovered on Friday evening a new (to me) tool called OSINTUI.

I've mentioned that I'm doing a project this summer to implement passive radar with my multi-tuner coherent SDR, the KrakenSDR... but what exactly does that mean?

I've FINALLY managed to finish the last of the tweaks for my police/fire/ems scanner!

Last week, a friend shared a photo of an X-Wing Starfighter that someone had created out of found junk.

It's been a while since I updated on the Drone Mesh Mapper I acquired and got set up.

My kids are wonderful - most of the time - and I love the questions they lob my way from time to time.

One of the projects I want to do with my KrakenSDR is to set up a passive radar station to detect aircraft and drones flying over that are NOT broadcasting their identification on ADS-B (or drone ID via Wifi / Bluetooth).

I discovered earlier this morning that I had made a mistake when first setting up my P25 police/fire/ems scanner - and it's one that impacts a LOT.

My deep dive into the world of RF hacking has led me to many different areas to explore and play around with - and introduced me to some new tools to use as well.

Part of having a media server for me is being able to share access with some friends and family, as well as be able to enjoy it myself when I'm away from home.

Now that damn near everything uses USB-C as the standard format for charging ports, I thought it might be prudent to dish out a little PSA on PSUs for those who likely do not know.

If you're like me, and hate tossing away old tech just because it's got a few years on it... then chances are you probably have some old tech laying around collecting dust.

I've had a server / workstation sitting around collecting dust for a long time...

I've spent some time this week cleaning my office, and have found the process to bring positive energy, inspiration, and motivation.

Around this time last year, I was watching videos from London's The Royal Institute, and one of the lecturers mentioned a project where volunteers were hunting black holes using data from a satellite that's surveying stars.

Some time in the past couple of months my ADS-B feeder dropped offline and I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I did not notice it until recently.

"It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know."

Recently a fellow hacker on hackers.town was experiencing issues getting their pwnagotchi to work.

We fly on them regularly enough, and see them above us so often that they barely spark any interest or notice anymore (unless you're like me, then they're like shiny squirrels to a dog or cat) - airplanes are everywhere!

I've been giving the Tangara as much of a chance as I can, in the hopes that maybe the more I use it the more it will grow on me.

I hadn't really intended on writing a part II to this, but..it seemed worth doing after spending a few days troubleshooting and getting things working the way they really should.

A fellow hacker at Hackers.Town mentioned the Tillitis TKey some months back and I ended up snagging on, figuring I would eventually get around to setting it up and actually using it.

They're so ubiquitous we see them everywhere.

If you're like me at all then you probably get curious when you hear a siren in the distance - what happened?

In my last post I went over Mesh Detect and my setup experience at a high level, but I did not really go into any real detail about how to go about getting one working.

I posted the other day that my Tangara had arrived (I had forgotten it even shipped!)

SUCCESS!

It's a banner week for tech here at Chateau Du Wrew - for Monday I was able to install the discrete GPU for my Framework 16 (it's been running rock solid since), Yesterday I received my Mesh Detect, and this morning my Tangara music player arrived.

I recently came across a project called Mesh Detect, which using relatively inexpensive hardware allows one to detect Wifi and Bluetooth devices nearby - and specifically has firmware geared for detecting and identifying drones flying nearby.