A hobbyist has converted an LG D325 Android phone into a wideband radio receiver that can pick up shortwave signals, using only small modifications.
Researchers have recently found that the radio chips in many inexpensive wireless devices, including network interfaces, microcontrollers, and LoRa modules, can be made to expose their raw baseband data. That opens the door to full software-defined radio (SDR) functions on hardware that would otherwise cost very little. Logan Zarov has taken this idea further by turning an LG D325 Android phone into a wideband receiver, with only very minor modifications.
The phone is rooted and runs LineageOS. A modem firmware update provides the baseband access needed for SDR work, and an antenna wire modification completes the setup. The most striking part is the receive range. The phone's modem operates in the GHz range, but this receiver can tune into the MHz range, including shortwave bands. To achieve this, the Bluetooth radio serves as a local oscillator, using a technique similar to one we described a few weeks ago.
We find this hack remarkably ambitious and expect that similar projects will follow. A video demonstration of the device in operation is available in the original article.
Source: Hackaday
