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Is there any piece of hardware or software I can use that will allow me to transmit and/or receive radio signals from my laptop? I'd prefer to do it using my existing hardware, like my wifi card, but I'd be okay with buying a special piece of hardware too.

To be clear, I'm not simply looking to pick up and transmit radio or tv signals on my computer. I'm planning on building something a bit more complicated and a lot more flexible which will work over a wider frequency range. For example I would like to be able to monitor two-way radio channels, or perhaps transmit audio to baby monitors or on unused fm radio frequencies.

Oh, and in case you're wondering I don't really have a particular reason for wanting to do this. I just think it would be a really fun project.

Ajedi32
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2 Answers2

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Check out GNU Radio. Sounds like you'd be interested in the USRP hardware. There is also the GNU Radio Archive Network. Somebody may have already built the application you're looking for or at least you'll have some non-trivial working examples to learn from.

XavierStuvw
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Mark Johnson
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Make sure to check out RTL-SDRs also. They cost significantly less (around $10-$100) than USRP (but are RX only). Another thing is the HackRF (which wasn't around when this was first posted but I figure this may help someone in the future searching for the same thing). Also, there are command line utilities to control frequency, gain, bandwidth, etc in the rtl-sdr software package.

Mark
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