Alien Trails Labs

Field log // 2026

Follow the signal.

I build radio and electronics projects in my spare time, mostly ESP32 boards, SDR and Linux. This is where I write them up.

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Builds
4
Live
4
Log entries
3
Last update
2026-11-06
Online AZM-01

Azimuth: a signal dashboard for my car

A small Linux box in my car that collects data from every radio I plug into it and puts it on an offline map. It only listens.

Version
0.58.1
Host
ThinkCentre M910q · Debian 13
Radios
12× ESP32-C5 cluster · RTL-SDR · MeshCore L1
Maps
Fully offline
Open build log

Projects // 04 total

Latest builds

All projects
Cartoon of a faceted black helmet with pointed ears and a mesh visor lined with glowing green and blue LED strips, sitting on a workbench next to a small speaker, a touchscreen controller and a power bank.
Online

Helmet ESP32: LED helmet controller

An ESP32 that runs a WS2812B LED strip around a helmet, with 16 patterns, a bass mode that reacts to music, and an Android app over BLE.

  • esp32
  • leds
  • ble
  • android
Cartoon of an open black hard case on a bench at night, with twelve tiny antenna boards in a foam grid of three rows of four and a larger manager box beside them, dotted lines joining them, and a phone on a stand next to the case linked to it wirelessly.
Online

C5 Cluster: twelve scanners that work as one

Twelve ESP32-C5 boards and a manager board that wardrive together for Azimuth. They split the Wi-Fi channels between them, take turns scanning BLE, and keep going if my phone disconnects.

  • esp32
  • wardriving
  • wifi
  • ble

Log // recent

From the log

Full log

  1. Helmet: turning the screen off from the app

    Added a setting to turn off the helmet controller's screen and buttons while it's in my pocket. Releases now build automatically.

    1 min

  2. Azimuth 0.58.1: fixed the MeshCore node count

    Every new session started with the same MeshCore count, and old nodes were being saved with the current location. Fixed in 0.58.1.

    1 min

  3. Driver for the MyGica A681 USB TV tuner

    I couldn't find a working Linux driver for my USB TV tuner, so I made one.

    1 min