The RF Signal Tracker is a little buggy so in order to use it properly you should turn of auto-rotation of your screen and avoid running too many other applications at the time. When the phone is in idle mode you will get less accurate readings but usually good enough in order to make well reasoned assumptions about the network.

Starting the RF Signal Tracker software you have an option to record your data. It will use the built-in GPS receiver in the phone to find out where you are and then log together with the signal strength (in dBm) and other parameters such as the base station Cell ID, the LAC and many other important parameters as well as the base station position (if it is known).

This can then be exported to the Micro SD-card in the phone as a CSV file which is the easiest format to use. Once you have it as a CSV file you may tether the phone to your computer and transfer this file to your working directory.

If you are running some flavour of Linux, BSD or other Unix you are set but if you are running Windows you need to install a package called Cygwin. Standard settings should do, you need a command line that works and a tool called “awk” which is awesome. Tutorial for AWK can be found here.

Open a shell, navigate to your working directory and find the CSV file. Then issue a command like this:

awk <export_091130170020.csv ’BEGIN {FS=”,”}; {print $3/1000000 “,” $2/1000000 “,” 130+$4}’ >coord.txt

This should export a file called “coord.txt” in your working directory with coordinates in WGS84 decimal format (ddd.ddddd, dd.ddddd) with the easting/westing and the northing/southing in that order.

The next step is to take the following KML file and open it in a text editor, just copy it straight to the editor of your choice.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
  <Document>
    <name>Paths</name>
    <description>Examples of paths. Note that the tessellate tag is by default
      set to 0. If you want to create tessellated lines, they must be authored
      (or edited) directly in KML.</description>
    <Style id="yellowLineGreenPoly">
      <LineStyle>
        <color>7f00ffff</color>
        <width>4</width>
      </LineStyle>
      <PolyStyle>
        <color>7f00ff00</color>
      </PolyStyle>
    </Style>
    <Placemark>
      <name>Signal Strength Test Run</name>
      <description>Some description here</description>
      <styleUrl>#yellowLineGreenPoly</styleUrl>
      <LineString>
        <extrude>1</extrude>
        <tessellate>1</tessellate>
        <altitudeMode>relativeToGround</altitudeMode>
        <coordinates>
<!-- YOUR COORDINATES GOES HERE -->
        </coordinates>
      </LineString>
    </Placemark>
  </Document>
</kml>

Find the section that says<coordinates> </coordinates>  in the above and then cut and paste the coordinates from the coordinates.txt file in between the two tags.

If you have google earth you can now double-click on the KML file you created and view the result. The height over ground is the signal strength calculated such as that a strength of -130 dBm is flat on the ground and for every dBm above the measurement point is placed 1 m/dBm above ground. This means that a signal strength of -90 dBm will place the point at 130-90 = 40 m above ground.

Happy hacking!

Apparently resurceful people in Brazil have learned how they can use modified HAM radio equipment and satellite dishes to hijack military transponder satellites to use as a country-wide radio network.

It all started with a radio station that realized they could use the transponders to broadcast a radio signal and today many people from truckers to drug runners are using the satellites to broadcast warning information or just chatter about the latest football score.

Quite impressive! Using the US Navy’s Fleet Satellite Communications System like this is excellent stuff!

Here is the story in Wired

China vs. Pentagon

Hackers stole plans for Joint Strike Fighter II. The Swedish paper “Ny Teknik” (mainly an engineering and technology news paper) reports today that what seems to be Chinese hackers have broken into the most secret parts of Pentagon and stolen the secret plans of the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. 

The Wall Street Journal cites that the hacks were performed during 2007 and 2008 and several terbytes of data where stolen.  The attacks came through a supplier in Turkey via the Lockheed facility there.

The american defense forces are now taking measures to increase their IT security. 

The cost of developing the JSF is one of the most prestigious and expensive projects undertaken and the stolen data could possibly be used by someone to analyze the JSF for its weaknesses and develop an effective defense against it.

It contains information on the following types of sorting algorithms:

• Insertion
• Selection
• Bubble
• Shell
• Merge
• Heap
• Quick
• Quick3

Great visualisation!

That designed was called the “bread box” here in Sweden with that typical beige gray sort of colour for the Commodore computers. Way before the redesigned almost Volvo-looking C128 and C128D and the futuristic sort of looking Amiga 500.

The C64 Portable - Brilliant retro hack!

Click the image to read the full article.

I can’t help myself now. This just brought back too many memories from when we used to sit around and hack the C64.

Opening borders, doing colour bars, trying to extend sprites in the border, doing real time animations…

Good article for those who missed out on the eighties…