Ep 388: RAM-Swapping on Raspberry Pi, Raindrops on Radar, and a Fine Mesh

Hackaday Podcast · 25 Sept 2026 · 1h 14m · Episode 388

What this episode covers

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams discuss the community reaction to Raspberry Pi locking out RAM chip swapping, debating the balance between preventing fraud and preserving hacker freedom. They explore the physics of raindrops acting as radar antennas, the historical cracking of World War I ADFGVX ciphers, and the potential FCC compliance issues facing LoRa mesh networks like Meshtastic and Meshcore. The episode also covers practical hacks including on-chip debugging for MicroPython, repurposing cheap LTE modems into handheld computers, and local speech recognition tools for Linux.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 51m

    "Impedance Matching" With Charvat And Ossmann - Recurring RF Remontados

    Greg Charvat, an entrepreneur and radar expert known for the MIT coffee can radar, and Michael Ossmann of Great Scott Gadgets, creator of the HackRF software-defined radio (SDR), discuss the technical details of SDR, radar design, and RF security. They explore the architecture of the HackRF, specifically its decision to omit an FPGA to reduce cost and power, and discuss how to integrate it with low-cost FMCW radar modules for range-Doppler imaging. The conversation also covers Ossmann's work on RF retro-reflectors for the NSA Playset project, the challenges of interference in the 2.4 GHz band, and the regulatory landscape for devices like the GoTenna.

  • The Amp Hour

    Watt Is The Deal

    Dave Jones and Chris Gammell discuss the Keysight HD3 oscilloscope, highlighting its 14-bit ADC and Megazune 5 ASIC, and debate the practical value of such high resolution. They then explore MeshTastic, a community-driven mesh networking protocol built on LoRa, using ESP32-based hardware like the Heltec V3 to enable encrypted, off-grid communication. Finally, they touch on the new Embedded World conference in Austin and the complexities of residential smart meters and energy management.

  • The Electromaker Show · 33m

    Electromaker of the Month Winners, Maker Music Festival, and more!

    The host of The Electromaker Show reviews the February Electromaker of the Month winners, including a LoRa walkie-talkie by Kutlahan Akta, and celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Raspberry Pi. He discusses a faithful Sol-20 retro computer recreation using a Raspberry Pi, reviews the Blues Wireless Notecard for cellular IoT, and highlights a Cornell University project for silent voice command recognition via lip reading.

  • The Amp Hour · 28m

    #397.6 - An Interview with Matt Knight

    Matt Knight, an electrical engineer and security researcher, discusses his work at ToorCamp on using Software Defined Radios (SDRs) to reverse-engineer and fuzz RF protocols. He details his research into LoRa physical layer modulation, specifically chirp spread spectrum, and the security implications of LoRaWAN. Knight also introduces TumbleRF, an open-source fuzzing framework he developed with Ryan Spears to automate the discovery of vulnerabilities in wireless devices, and his custom hardware project, Orthris, designed to overcome USB latency limitations in RF testing.

  • The Electromaker Show · 35m

    Mystery Raspberry Pi hardware, beautiful ESP32 ZX Spectrum, Stretchy PCBs and MUCH more!

    The host discusses stretchable PCB research from Yale's Faboratory and Charles Lohr's PolyLMN project, which use liquid metal pastes to create circuits that stretch up to 4x their size. He covers the potential Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard computer, the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W featuring the new RP2350 chip and in-house RM2 Wi-Fi module, and the M5Stack Cardputer ESP32 devkit. The episode also highlights the ESP32 Rainbow ZX Spectrum on Crowd Supply, solderless PCB prototyping with Opulo's Lumen PNP, and the ethical resolution of Jeff Geerling's voice cloning incident by Elecrow.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Hackaday Podcast. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.