Surya Mattu

Radio waves have been harnessed for communication for over a century. From simple morse code signals to high definition video, this medium has played a critical role in enabling how we, and our devices interact with each other.

Thanks to increasingly accessible hardware platforms, the barrier of entry has been lowered for harnessing this medium. Making a project that uses wireless has become cheaper and easier than ever before, however, the protocols used (Wi-Fi, BLE, Zigbee) are still a small part of the entire Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum.

This class will start by diving into Wi-Fi as a way of better understanding some RF fundamentals that a lot of wireless infrastructure relies on.
We will then dive deeper and look at Software defined Radios and listen to other parts of the spectrum that were previously off limits for creative exploration. These include air traffic control, weather satellites, GSM, and many more!

This class hopes to make radios exciting for the uninitiated with an explanation of the technical fundamentals they are based on along with the social and political impact they have in our current digital landscape.

We will use the FCC allocated radio spectrum as our playground and explore the waves!