Description

In this video I show how to broadcast our own digital TV signal!

Hardware:
– BladeRF (x40) – DVB-T Transmitter
– RTL-SDR #1 (E4000) – DVB-T Receiver
– RTL-SDR #2 (R820T) – SDRSharp viewer

Topics covered:
– Transmitting a DVB-T signal
– Verifying the signal visually
– Using w_scan to scan for DVB-T channels
– Using vlc to view a DVB-T frequency
– Configuring channels.conf for mplayer
– Using mplayer with the correct demuxer (lavf)
– Checking system resource usage while viewing DVB-T channels

Channels.conf details: (Make sure to change the frequency if you’re not transmitting on 522MHz)
service_id 1:522000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_AUTO:FEC_AUTO:QAM_AUTO:TRANSMISSION_MODE_AUTO:GUARD_INTERVAL_AUTO:HIERARCHY_AUTO:69:68:1

Script usage: (Make sure to set the frequency you want to transmit on, and make sure you have loaded the FPGA, and last but not least, that you’re pointing to the correct MPEGTS file.)
./dvbt-blade.py -m t8k -c 8 -C qpsk -r 7/8 -g 1/32 -f 522e6 ~/Desktop/file.ts

Notes for when it doesn’t work:
Sometimes it’s not going to work, despite that you’ve done exactly as I did in my video.
In that case, unplug the devices, try switching USB ports, don’t use USB hubs for the bladeRF and RTL-SDR that decodes the DVB-T signal, and pray to the “demo gods”, in case you’re demonstrating this to someone else. In my case, I actually just waited a bit, and did something else for 30 minutes, came back, and did exactly the same thing again, and then it worked.

Tools:
– BladeRF (https://nuand.com/)
– gr-dvbt (https://github.com/BogdanDIA/gr-dvbt)
– dtv-utils (https://github.com/drmpeg/dtv-utils)
– w_scan (w-scan with apt-get)
– sdr# (sdrsharp, https://airspy.com/download/ & https://github.com/jmichelp/sdrsharp-bladerf)
– iostat (sysstat with apt-get)
– mplayer

Melodysheep – The Good of the One – Spock tribute:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/watch?v=2vNBA8mHFf8

Stay tuned and subscribe for more upcoming videos showing actual hacks!