this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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What is this thing?

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Just curious what this is? Spotted in suburban northeast US. Didn’t see anything wlse like it around but maybe I just missed them.

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[–] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A lot of those are not encrypted and can be read with a cheap sdr dongle.

[–] yaroto98@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Mine is. I have one and tried. I can't even see it. I also have a similar looking antenna at the end of my street.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have a smart meter that allows grid controllers to remotely charge and discharge my battery to smooth out high demand peaks (I earn money from it) but I haven't been able to record a coherent bitstream from it with my SDR yet. I assume it's encrypted and/or proprietary data.

[–] Oka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago

From what im told, the transmitters lie dormant most of the time (at least for gas). Only when they receive a signal do they send a signal, except when they are activated by a technician. When activated, they broadcast a signal to reach either another device on the network, or a reciever like the one in op's pic.