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Ettus Research
Company blog · ettus.com/bloghardwaresystems
Ettus Research is the company blog at ettus.com, writing about hardware and systems. Since 2010, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 22 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-15, and you can follow it by feed.
22mentions?
20HN people?
2010–2026first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (19) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ettus Research's site, which sells USRP software-defined radio hardware, when recommending or pricing SDR gear. The comments concern products and specs, not writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 19 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Ettus Research specializes in software defined radio (SDR) systems. The USRP platform addresses a wide range of RF applications from DC to 8 GHz.
Most-linked posts?
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-03-15
- /all-products/ub210-kit/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-25
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-31
- /products2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-01-17
What Hacker News says?
> In the spirit of what this community's name suggests it's about, how hard would it be for someone to hack into the spacecraft by sending it a signal to turn on its thruster too soon given the technology is 40 years old? Perhaps listening to the traffic could help deciphering the encryption (if any). What it wouldn't be easy at all is to have antennae large enough and in various parts of the world: amateurs still d…
Comment linking /blog/2014/07/contacting-a-36-year-old-space-craft-why-not
on “After 37 years, Voyager has fired up its trajectory thrusters”Submitted The ISEE-3 Reboot Mission: a dream SDR application for Ettus Research's USRP as a story · 16 points
HN discussionIt uses a USRP N210 ( https://www.ettus.com/product/details/UN210-KIT ) which has an FPGA that is most likely used for the signal processing. However, quite a lot can be done on a standard PC these days with SSE or GPGPU programming.
Comment linking /product/details/UN210-KIT
on “A 4G LTE base station running entirely in software on a standard PC”Submitted RFNoC for High-Performance Software Defined Radio with FPGAs (2015) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionTSCM services commonly employ non linear junction detectors, if you have a legit need and money to spend and worry that your offices have been bugged (or are at risk of being bugged), you absolutely can hire them. This isn't really a new thing. More advanced highly portable RF equipment, portable spectrum analyzers and things built with relatively low-cost SDR that talk to Linux SBCs make the equipment to do this a…
Comment linking /all-products/ub210-kit/
on “Eye of Sauron: Long-Range Hidden Spy Camera Detection (2024)”Submitted USRP X300 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYes, but very expensive. https://www.ettus.com/products/ Also the limeSDR are supposed to do this. I had one, it arrived inoperable, I sent it back, never heard from them again. Still a little bitter, because I paid in to the crowdfunding.
Comment linking /products/
on “Software-Defined Radio for Engineers (2018) [pdf]”Depends on how cost sensitive you are. Currently the LimeSDR[1] is the best value (even at $300 and no case) because it is not only full duplex, it also supports MIMO operation. While the latter is intended to support things like 4G LTE it also gives one the ability to do direction finding as multiple receivers clocked by a phase locked LO allows you to do phase analysis of incoming signals. The Ettus USRP B-series[…
Comment linking /product-categories/usrp-bus-series/
on “Decoding radio telemetry heard on news helicopter video footage with GNU Radio”EG: https://www.ettus.com/
Comment linking /
on “Wide-Band WebSDR – Shortwave Radio on the Internet”Better SDR gear is out there for a price: https://www.ettus.com/product/category/USRP-Bus-Series (these are their cheapest models)
Comment linking /product/category/USRP-Bus-Series
on “LimeSDR Mini – An open, full-duplex, USB stick radio for femtocells and more”Well, you can sniff wifi with any network card and driver that support promiscuous mode for the wireless standard you're interested in. For bluetooth, I have used the Ubertooth One [1]. Unfortunately the range is pretty short with this device... Radio sniffing in general is done with software defined radio (SDR). Three pieces of hardware I have used for this and can recommend are the RTL2832U [2] (ultra cheap, can h…
Comment linking /all-products/UB200-KIT/
on “A Billion Surveillance Cameras Forecast to Be Watching Within Two Years”There are currently (to my knowledge) two working open-source/free-software implementations of the GSM stack. OpenBTS ( http://openbts.sourceforge.net/ ) puts everything, beginning at the modulation/demodulation of the radio-frequency, into your PC and uses a USRP ( http://www.ettus.com/products ) as the radio-frequency frontend (~$2000). OpenBSC ( http://openbsc.gnumonks.org ) uses a different approach and starts i…
Comment linking /products
on “OpenBTS: Cheap, open source cellular network”The USRP II is ~$1400, plus a PC, plus the antenna/mast I would think no more than 5k? A link to the USRP site: http://www.ettus.com/
Comment linking /
on “Burning Man's open source cell phone system could help save the world”Are you sure you mean 640MSPS re. the Ettus B200, that sounds very high for an entry level SDR. Looking at the Ettus spec page - https://www.ettus.com/product/details/UB200-KIT they quote 61.44MS/s. Also the HackRf isn't full duplex and the ADCs sample rate is a lot lower however it does have a greater frequency range.
Comment linking /product/details/UB200-KIT
on “LimeSDR: Flexible, Next-Generation, Open Source Software Defined Radio”Here is a quick comparison table I made for myself just yesterday. The purpose was to get an overview what is currently possible for what money. It most probably has errors but the sources are mentioned, so you can check for yourself. It's just the devices I stumbled upon, there are probably others. Source Device Price Max. Bandwidth Resolution Name EUR GHz MHz bit 1 rtl-sdr 20 2 2 8 2 rad1o 200 4 20 8 3 hackrf 400…
Comment linking /
on “GNU Radio Tools for Radio Wrangling and Spectrum Domination [video]”> but would I be right in thinking they would be able to see their leakage on the earth wire too? Yes, I think it should work. As you said, the main difference appears to be just the ADC. The PS/2 research only used a 1 Msps ADC on a microcontroller, it's a laughingly simple setup, but already productive (it's literally a 10-dollar instrument today, ideal spy gadget if your victim is still using PS/2 I guess). > But…
Comment linking /
on “Finding Radio Frequency Side Channels”Forgot the links: [1]: http://www.ettus.com/product/details/USRPPKG [2]: http://wush.net/trac/rangepublic/wiki/freeswitchConfig
Comment linking /product/details/USRPPKG
on “Stingrays Go Mainstream: 2014 in Review”Demonstrably untrue since you can download the Gnu-radio [1] kit which is supported by a module sold by Ettus [2] which basically allows you to create arbitrary software radios. If you ever wanted to build a hyper-encrypted-fast-flip-wideband-frequency-hopping super sekrit access point, these guys have what you need :-). Of course you would end up needing two of them at least. [1] http://gnuradio.org/redmine/project…
Comment linking /products
on “The FSF is papering over a binary blob”I've found the HackRF One [1] to be the next step up from the $20 TV tuners an Amazon [2] and the Ettus Research $2700 dream setup [3]. [1] https://greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/ [2] http://www.amazon.com/RioRand-Receiver-Low-Cost-Software-Def... [3] http://www.ettus.com/product/details/E310-KIT
Comment linking /product/details/E310-KIT
on “Level RF”I worked on applications similar to your PCL: Coherent backscatter systems for long-range RFID. It was really fun to apply "old school" techniques such as phased array direction of arrival and FMCW ranging for passive RFID tags. What used to consume entire tabletops is now condensed into exceedingly capable software defined radios. It's insane what you can get for a couple-$k from places like Ettus: https://www.ettu…
Comment linking /
on “WiFi: “beamforming” only begins to describe it (2014)”for passive sniffing, it looks like you can run the cheaper module at only $2k, which is approachable for researchers.. actually fully loaded price tag is $11k or $4k as you need GPSDO also.. but $4k is almost approachable I guess.. [edit to add] https://www.ettus.com/all-products/ub210-kit/
Comment linking /all-products/ub210-kit/
on “LTESniffer: An Open-Source LTE Downlink/Uplink Eavesdropper [pdf]”Yes, $9353 is beyond my hobby budget. https://www.ettus.com/all-products/X310-KIT
Comment linking /all-products/X310-KIT
on “The Cheap Radio Hack That Disrupted Poland's Railway System”
