User restrictions?
I'm seeing a lot of folks using my KiwiSDR to listen to local MW stations - all of which stream their content elsewhere on the Internet. I wish I could prevent users from listening to blocks of frequencies as they ignore my "owner info" & "status" texts of "DO NOT USE to listen to local MW! ???????????!". The only other solution I see that might work is a HPF to block everything below 1.8 Mc - though I'm not sure if the stopband attenuation will be enough as I'm just a few km away both sites (one line-of-sight & the other spitting distance through an adjacent block of flats) - but will certainly bugger any other MW & below reception, which I'd prefer not to do. Suggestions, anyone?
73, Brett/p.
73, Brett/p.
Comments
I know that this doesn't answer your central question about setting up a block, of course. It is an excellent question and one that I'm also interested in hearing possible solutions for.
"I have a particular problem in that a lot of Dutch music pirates use my SDR all day long to monitor their own transmissions around 6MHz.
What I really need to be able to do is to be able lock out certain frequency ranges or restrict the amount of time individual users can stay on the SDR before getting automatically kicked off. I currently have the inactivity time out set at 15mins but I may have to reduce this still further."
See http://forum.kiwisdr.com/discussion/comment/1601
And also in 2018
"I have a few KiWi users who sit on the same frequencies for a lot of the time, usually listening to broadcast stations that can often be heard by listening to streamed audio on the web.
Would it be possible to add a 'blocking' function to a DX tab ? This would prevent folks tuning to frequencies marked by the center frequency and bandwidth described within the tag and could also offer an Admin defined URL that could be used to point KiWi users to an online streamed audio service."
http://forum.kiwisdr.com/discussion/1229/dx-tags-request-to-add-blocking-feature
There is also a problem of legality in some countries, where allowing the remote use of a receiver by others, to monitor some signals or ranges of frequencies could be problematic.
Regards,
Martin - G8JNJ
I also put a per-user time limit on but I don't like penalizing legitimate amateur use, which I don't mind even if it's extended periods if it truly is being used.
Glenn n6gn
Create tiny website with a code your valid users can translate into this week's access password by some simple formula.
code like "0241950430" password = TheRye
or "9780099549482" = ToMockingbird
First I'd get the user IP address from the user.log on the KiwiSDR:
ssh to the KiwiSDR then run this command:
root@kiwisdr:~# cat /var/log/user.log |grep Bourbon
Jan 20 00:20:12 kiwisdr kiwid: 3d:21:48:30.613 01.. 1 670.00 kHz am z0 "xxx.xxx.xxx.2" Bourbon, Illinois, USA (ARRIVED)
root@kiwisdr:~#
Then make a firewall rule in the DD-WRT router to block that particular IP access to the LAN behind the router NAT.
iptables -I FORWARD -sxxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -j DROP
Of course if the troubled user comes in from another IP address, you are left to add more addresses or range of addresses such as "xxx.xxx.xxx.0/24". Use the actual IP address and not the xxx stuff.
Ron
KA7U
I'm already ratcheting down user access time (not good as requires me to do & then undo). With one of the MW transmitter sites ~3.5 km away, I suspect making it inaudible will be a bit of a challenge. And I've seen these folks change IP addresses.
The problem is that they keep tuning to local MW that's already streamed on the 'net. Unless I can restrict what they can tune to, then it will continue to happen.
73, Brett.
You mean like this? http://221.151.93.194:7745/?f=657amz6 [Kiwi in Seoul listening to AM BCB station jammed by the DPRK. Similarly with stations on 819 and 855 kHz]
I find this whole discussion somewhat unsettling.
It sounds like they are using the same modulation pattern on multiple carriers. That would tend to imply that the source is at a single location, which if over the air and actually transmitted, can require a lot of ERP to be effective against path loss.
Maybe just notch all of MW, that's a little less distasteful to my way of thinking.
Or If the radio server has more than one Kiwi have the second in eight channel, audio only, mode and redirect some frequency bands to that.
I do understand why some users want to make some type of use less attractive, I've previously run single-user fairly high bandwidth SDR's on the web only to see the sole user forget they are connected so leave the thing tied up till timeout.
> Global timeout except Ham (or other selectable) bands
Do you guys seriously see tuning inside of ham bands as more legitimate than tuning outside of them? This thread is indeed quite unsettling.
Resources and channels are finite, why not try make the designed use work better than the non? If someone sets up an antenna for 0-5MHz but deaf at HF end why would it make sense to have a user tied up a channel where reception is poor?
It's sure that some uses are a waste, like it was mentioned, commercial broadcasts also available on the web; unless you're checking radio propagation or something, but then you wouldn't keep it open continuously for extended amounts of time. But I don't think we should see restricting this as the only solution, that's pretty negative. Education works too. I know that maybe you don't want to go through such extremes, but maybe adding the web radio URL on the station tag would help steer people that way, who knows?
And again, as for the USAF HFGCS, or other channels, military or other, that operate on a fixed frequency round the clock, my approach for that is that if it's popular, someone should make an audio stream of it relayed on the web. That way, providing for bandwidth, any number of user can connect and listen to it at the same time, and only one receiver slot for everyone is ever tied down for it. So it's true that listening to HFGCS that way is not the best. However, that military network is indeed popular to some, because it carries strategic command messages (for example see http://eam.watch/). And people listen to it for hours because it's active all day and they're interested in monitoring all these messages.
And the fact that it would be automated, 24/7 and a machine, not even a human, doesn't mean it's a waste. It's actually smart, if they're recording. That way they can go back on the recording and spot on a spectrum view if and when there were any message, and recover them. Sometimes, for stations that are unpredictable and could transmit at any time within a span of hours, or maybe not at all, setting up these automated recordings is unfortunately the only practical way to monitor them, because there's no way to know. It might seem pointless but you'd be surprised at what random people try to achieve and how it actually does make sense.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you guys get angered by particular individuals. That strikes me, because the internet is big, and I don't think it's very healthy to focus on policing individual users. The internet is full of trolls and idiots and you just got to let it slide and ignore them, otherwise I don't think it's healthy; not because of the impact of starting a "war" with them, but because of the impact on yourself trying to control that.
And at the same time, I know you paid for it and it's yours, but I don't see the point of encouraging KiwiSDR owners to feel like God (or a judge, or Santa if you want) and give good points and bad points to users based on what use they make of the receiving slots offered to them. I know that policing to ensure fairness between users is necessary, but in what I see here there is also some policing of what users choose to listen to. Nobody forces you to share your KiwiSDR with the public, and thank you all for doing so, but if you share it it's for a reason; so that users can enjoy the service, and they're still the best judges of how they would enjoy it best. So I think it's healthy to let them appreciate that; and I know it does try my patience too sometimes, but it's a good thing. And frankly when I see KiwiSDRs with several slots taken by WSPR autorun sessions, I don't understand that either
I appreciate how using frequency filters could be a solution, however I feel that jamming crosses a line that shocks me. I can't condone that, come on, jamming is bad?? From a technical and administration point of view, blocking is what is done against disruptive and malevolent users. Fortunately that doesn't seem to be much of a problem on the KiwiSDR network. And blocking is rarely used as a fairness tool, because there are proper and better tools to manage resource fairness. The listening time accounting and daily quota by user look like good features to me. What is your experience with that?
Ron
KA7U
there could be say 3 entry fields, each field can input a defined lower frequency, defined upper frequency and a defined time.
when a user connects and tunes within the defined frequencies, the timer countdown begins.
how and whether the user should be notified about this is another discussion since there are a multitude of optional methods presently possible to inform a connected user about a time limit within a defined range of frequencies.
73, VR2BG.
Only a small percentage of the Kiwis sold are currently public. Worse, a lot of the Kiwis that used to be public have disappeared (sadly, even some really good ones)
The next mental health toy acquisition here will likely be a Red Pitaya, which will free up my Kiwi & other SDRs.
Moved everything into a different room of the flat here yesterday & can get the GPS antenna into a location where it sees a bit more sky, so hopefully that's helping folks doing TDoA.
73, VR2BG.
73, VR2BG.
n6gn