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Liability of Open Source radios


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Posted by Andy Stephenson on 08/04/2020 10:46:40:

Andy48

The document I referred to above appears as a email circulated by Duncan McClure South Midalnds Area Delegate to the BMFA and recommends that a local club adopts an embargo of open source radios as he maintains it IS possible to change the power settings using this system.

I have now seen this email but it is an internal club communication so I won't put it online without permission.

You may want to contact Duncan directly on this subject.

Andy.

I have over 20 transmitters, all running open source firmware. Apart from the 4-in-1 module, they all use a 2.4 GHz RF module that is closed source firmware provided by the original manufacturer and the open source firmware has NO access to the RF chip programming.

Mike

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Posted by Mike Blandford on 08/04/2020 16:08:38:
Posted by Andy Stephenson on 08/04/2020 10:46:40:

Andy48

The document I referred to above appears as a email circulated by Duncan McClure South Midalnds Area Delegate to the BMFA and recommends that a local club adopts an embargo of open source radios as he maintains it IS possible to change the power settings using this system.

I have now seen this email but it is an internal club communication so I won't put it online without permission.

You may want to contact Duncan directly on this subject.

Andy.

I have over 20 transmitters, all running open source firmware. Apart from the 4-in-1 module, they all use a 2.4 GHz RF module that is closed source firmware provided by the original manufacturer and the open source firmware has NO access to the RF chip programming.

Mike

Mike.

I think that THIS is the sort of tweaking that Andy S is referring to. Info is out there if anyone really wants to do it, but as the thread in the link alludes to, it doesn't make sense to do it.

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Well, the FrSky XJT module uses 3.3V to power the SE2431L power amplifier chip, so you could only try to increase the output power by increasing the supply voltage to (the absolute maximum voltage for the device of) 3.6V.

Then you could see an output power increase from 22.5 to 24 dBm, but only if you also increase the input signal by 3dBm (from 0dBm to 3dBm). Since the input signal is that provided by the CC2500 chip, and that can only output a maximum of +1dBm, you can't do that! In any case, the output power from the CC2500 is controlled by the (non-open source) firmware in the module.

I can't actually see that suggestion achieving anything significant, while risking exceeding the max. supply voltage of 3.6V and destroying the SE2431L

At best, I reckon you might get a 0.5dBm gain in output power, so increasing the output from 100mW to 112mW, which might get you an extra 6% of range!

Mike

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Exactly Mike.

Not worth risking burning your hardware out for the minimal increase in range.

So back to the original point of the thread - does open source present a higher risk than proprietary software?

An analogy here might be - which PC operating system is at the higher risk of being exploited - Linux or Windows?

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Posted by Stephen Smith 14 on 08/04/2020 22:30:13:

They could ban all transmitters to be sure and just fly free flight

ban free flight, a you could modify the clock work timers in them so they don't meet the manufactures standards, dangerous I say , could land on someone in an uncontrolled manner! devil

Edited By flight1 on 08/04/2020 23:52:45

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