{
  "id": 14004104,
  "title": "Turn a WiFi 7 Router into a 320Msps Software Defined Radio Receiver",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/12/turn-a-wifi-7-router-into-a-320msps-software-defined-radio-receiver",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-12T12:41:58.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News",
    "slug": "hacker-news",
    "url": "https://github.com/h0m3us3r/w1700k-sdr"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A Gemtek W1700K Wi-Fi 7 router can be transformed into a wideband software-defined receiver capable of processing a 320 Msps signal across the entire 2.4 GHz band. The MediaTek MT7996 radio within the router captures raw 14-bit IQ data at this high rate. This data is then streamed over a 10 GbE connection to a Linux host, where it appears as a live spectrum and waterfall display in a web browser. Controls for the receiver are also displayed alongside the spectrum view. The router maintains a flattened signal, correcting for the decimation's roll-off, enabling a 262,144-point FFT analysis of every sample, with 100 spectra displayed per second.\n\nThe MT7996 radio is controlled exclusively by custom firmware, incorporating a ROM patch and WM and WA files from a designated GitHub repository. This firmware replaces MediaTek's original code, performing all initialization and calibration procedures without any additional MediaTek software. Upon powering on, the router initializes its radio, adjusting settings such as LO frequency, sample rate, capture commands, streaming, gain control, and filtering, all dictated by commands sent from the host computer. Detailed instructions for this process are provided in the \"architecture.md\" and \"roadmap.md\" documentation files.\n\nOperating the device at its maximum capacity, the router streams 9.75 Gbit/s of data, representing half of a slice's capacity, while efficiently processing a pair of busy 80 MHz Wi-Fi channels situated between 5170–5330 MHz. When visualized in a 320 MHz bandwidth view, these channels and their guard gaps become clearly visible, with spectral details revealed at 1.22 kHz bin resolution. To utilize this setup, one requires the W1700K router, a 3.3 V USB serial adapter plugged into the router's console port, an Ethernet cable connecting to the router's lan3 port, and a 10 GbE NIC on the host machine linked to the router's wan port (compatible with a copper SFP+ module in a 10GBASE-T configuration). Once connected, initiating the software involves accessing the router's web interface at http://HOST:8073/ and initiating playback with the playback control. The initial boot-up process includes loading and starting the radio firmware, tuning the receiver, adjusting gain and filters, and then displaying status information—all controllable via terminal commands on the host machine. Building the necessary software requires a C/C++ compiler, make utility, Git version control, Python 3.10 or higher, and several development tools and libraries, all part of the Buildroot prerequisites. Importantly, no vendor-specific firmware is needed for this setup, and the project is licensed under the MIT license, with some components under the GPL-2.0-only and GPL-2.0+ licenses, and others under the BSD-3-Clause-Clear license.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}