[Discuss-gnuradio] Need suggestions for GNU Radio Learning curve

[Ashish S]

Hello SDR Community,

                 I am new to software defined radios(SDR) and had background in wireless & digital communications (2 years ago) during my Masters. During my masters , most of my understanding was based on simulations on simulink . Since then , I have been working on v2x communications (802.11p) at application layer developing safety warning applications. Now , I want to move my focus towards Physical layer completely (may want to develop 802.11p physical layer on hackrf for learning curve)and also for a career change into this area. 

    I bought a HackRF One,  RTL-SDR  and started with Micheal Osmonn's video tutorials (gave me pretty good basics I guess and a good start)and GNURadio Guided tutorials (skipped the c++ part and also have some confusions with stream tags and PMTs) and charan Langtons tutorials(good brush up on communications tutorials, still going through that). 

I am more of guy who uses MATLAB/Simulink , C, python . This took me like 2 weeks of time working after office hours. Now that I have like 10-12 days of  vacation and no office work (hurray, that's a good part) , I want to dedicate my time in learning more or to do some kind of a project (OOT module on some comm. protocol) and doing a Google search on GNURadio tutorials/projects/university_lab_documents etc gave me at least 50-60 weblinks bookmarks .

Is there any better and productive way of learning  I can do instead of just going through the each and every bookmark and replicating the stuff they have done ?? 

How do you all get comfortable with GNU radio projects ( each one of you might have started at some project or something or some way which might have helped you to learn and understand better ) 

Any suggestions/comments/questions are almost welcome . 

PS: I live in Detroit and if anyone wants to tag along with me on working/learning/collaborative project , please do let me know. I'm saying this as I don't find any SDR meetups/workshops in Detroit as they are organized in Boston, Bay area and Atlanta. 

Best Regards

Ashish