Version 1.5 of the popular Android based RTL-SDR software, SDRTouch has been released.
This new version adds presets, which is useful if you intend to use SDR Touch as an in car Android based radio.
The DMCA claims made on the software earlier also seem to have been resolved, meaning that SDR Touch can be obtained from the Google Play market once again.
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Version 1.6 of the popular Android based RTL-SDR software defined radio software, SDRTouch has been released. News comes via this forum post.
This release adds the following
They have also made the FFT engine about 3 – 4 times faster than in previous versions.
Download it from the Google Play store
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Wavesink is a new SDR Android App, which allows your RTL2832U based dongle to receive FM radio with RDS, Digital Audio Broadcast Radio (DAB) and VHF band Digital Radio Monodial (DRM+). DAB+ support is also to be released by next week, and a station memory will also be added in a future release.
The app is currently in beta development, and only the trial version is released, which will allow you to use the app for 5 minutes at a time. They indicate that the commercial version will be out soon.
To use this with your Android device, you will need a USB OTG (On the Go) cable, and your device must support USB host mode, which most Android devices above 3.1 should support.
I gave the app a quick spin in FM mode, and found that the interface was a little clunky, but the app worked fine, and the FM and RDS signals were decoded correctly.
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The programmer of the Android based software defined radio app SDR Touch has released a public beta of version 1.7. The programmer writes that the new features include
New multi-threaded core, native audio support, experimental x86 support is included as well. Although most changes are under the hood (the release is build for performance boosts), probably the most obvious non-performance enhancement is FM STEREO.
If you intend to install the beta you will need to first uninstall your existing version of SDR Touch, which will cause you to loose any presets you may have set. The programmer warns that this version may be unstable as it is in beta.
You can download the beta from http://sdr.martinmarinov.info/
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Wavesink Plus, the paid version of the trial version of Wavesink has been released on Google Play. Wavesink Plus is an Android app which has FM+RDS, DAB+ and DRM+ receiving and decoding capabilities when connected to an RTL-SDR dongle via a USB OTG cable.
We gave Wavesink Plus a test today on a HTC One X Android phone and were pleased to discover that it works perfectly. The user interface has been tidied up from previous versions, and DAB+ has been added. There is now also auto tuning functionality, which will automatically find a station.
In further testing we found that the latest version of Wavesink was fast and snappy and was able to load DAB+ stations quickly, and decode them with clear audio. FM radio also sounded clear and RDS information loaded quickly as well.
Download the trial version here and buy the full version from this link.
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The Android based SDR program SDRTouch has been officially updated to version 1.7. News comes via this forum post. This looks to be a major update which significantly improves audio quality and performance. The new features are listed below.
- FM is now in STEREO
- New audio recording feature for PRO users
- Improved reception and audio quality. All filters were tested for quality and all bugs discovered were removed.
- The multi-threading logic was completely rewritten. Now it’s faster than ever before.
- Audio is now using NDK.
- PPM correction, audio gain setting
- A lot of bug fixes and UI enhancements
- Experimental x86 support
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A (beta version) of an ADS-B decoder and display app for the RTL-SDR dongle for Android has been released. This app allows you to receive the ADS-B radio signals emitted by modern aircraft, which contain information such as flight number, latitude, longitude and altitude, essentially giving you a live portable aircraft radar.
To use the app, you will need an Android device that supports USB OTG, which most Android devices on Android 4.0+ should support. You will also need a USB OTG cable, and an RTL-SDR dongle. You may want to consider a USB OTG cable that has a second port for external charging capabilities, as the RTL-SDR can drain the battery quickly.
The app is cheaply priced at under $2, so give it a try!
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A new RTL-SDR Android app called SDRWeather has appeared on the Google Play Market. The new app allows you to listen to weather radio and decode EAS (Emergency Alert System) alerts. The app will only work in the US and Canada. More information about the app and its open source code can be found at http://sdrweather.thecongers.org.
This software along with a supported USB software defined radio turns your Android device to a portable weather radio.
Current Features:
* Listen to weather radio in the US/Canada.
* Decode EAS Alerts US/Canada
* Selectable Pre-defined Frequencies
* Alert Notifications
* Widget to display alerts
* Option to unmute audio when alert recieved
* FIPS and CLC Location Code Databases
* Event Code Database
* No internet connection requiredPossible future features
* Switch to using rtl_tcp_andro
* Option to only show alerts if you are currently in the affected region
* Affected region map
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SDR Touch, the popular Android based software defined radio software for the RTL-SDR has been updated to version 2.0. This new version is a complete rewrite with many optimizations listed below.
The author also writes that the rewrite allows for new features coming out in the future such as adjustable bandwidth, FFT size, plugins and a separate GUI for in-car use. SDR Touch is available from the Android Play store.
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Earlier this month we posted about a new port of the HackRF software defined radio Linux library for Android. Now the author of the Android port has created a new app called RF Analyzer. The app is basically a real time spectrum viewer that includes a waterfall display. The app can be downloaded from Github at https://github.com/demantz/RFAnalyzer.
The app currently supports the following features.
- Browse the spectrum by scrolling horizontally
- Zoom in and out, both horizontally and vertically
- Adjust the sample rate and center frequency to match the current view of the screen by double tapping
- Auto scale the vertical axis
- Jump directly to a frequency
- Adjust the gain settings of the HackRF
- Select a pre-recorded file as source instead of a real HackRF
- Change the FFT size
- Setting the frame rate either to a fixed value or to automatic control
- Activate logging and showing the log file
In the future the author intends to support the RTL-SDR and implement demodulation for basic modes such as AM, FM and SSB.
To use the app you’ll need an USB OTG (on-the-go) cable to connect your Android device to the HackRF.
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Previously we posted about the new RFAnalyzer Android app for the HackRF which has a RF spectrum and waterfall display. Now RFAnalyzer is available on the Google Play store with experimental support for the RTL-SDR dongle. The app also now supports AM and FM audio demodulation.
The app is fully open source and the code and APK can be downloaded for free from its Git repository. Alternatively, the app can be downloaded from the Google Play store at a small cost of $0.99 USD.
To use the app you’ll need a USB OTG cable to connect your HackRF or RTL-SDR to your Android phone. More information on the app can be found on the authors blog.
An alternative Android app to RFAnalyzer is SDR Touch.
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Android app programmer Nikos recently wrote in to let us know about his new app called “Track your flight Europe”. His app can be used together with an RTL-SDR and USB OTG cable to track aircraft via ADS-B. The difference between Nikos’ app and other similar ADS-B apps is that his app is specifically designed for tracking the aircraft you are flying in by providing an offline map which does not require an internet connection to display.
As the app is currently in the alpha stages of development, Nikos is looking for people to help test it out. The alpha can be downloaded for free on the Android Google play store at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.qtproject.example.Android_Application_ADSB_final.
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Flightaware.com is a web based online radar service for aircraft. The plane position data is obtained from contributors running ADS-B decoding hardware, such as a special ADS-B receiver box or simply an RTL-SDR dongle.
To increase the number of contributors, the team at FlightAware have released a new RTL-SDR compatible ADS-B decoder app for Android devices. The App is totally free and is also ad free. It can be downloaded from the Google Play store at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flightaware.android.flightfeeder. The intention of the app is to target users who may have an old Android device lying around, which can be put to good use in contributing data to FlightAware. More information about running the app can be found on their webpage.
When sharing data with FlightAware you are then eligible for a free enterprise account valued at $89.95 a month which allows you to access several advanced flight tracking features.
To use the app you’ll need an Android device, a USB OTG cable (ideally with external power port) and an RTL-SDR dongle. The USB OTG cable should ideally have an external power port and be powered from the mains with a power adapter as the battery can drain fast.
The post New ADS-B Mapping and Decoder App for Android from FlightAware appeared first on rtl-sdr.com.
Back in December last year we posted about Jane feverlay’s work on his software called AISRec, which was a Windows AIS decoder for the RTL-SDR that he had developed.
AIS is an acronym for Automatic Identification System and is a system used by ships to broadcast position and vessel information. By monitoring AIS transmissions with the RTL-SDR we can build a boat radar system. We have a tutorial on this here.
Now from YouTube it looks as though Jane has developed a new Android version of AISRec which he describes as a high performance dual-channel AIS receiver for use with a single RTL-SDR dongle. The features of AISRec include:
1. Functions include AIS and GPS NMEA I/O, from/to USB devices and serial ports (special android devices with serial ports).
2. It supports TCP server and UDP forwarding jointly or independently for AIS and GPS.
3. It supports steaming in WIFI in AP or station modes and Ethernet.
4. It supports auto run on boot for especially rooted devices.
He also writes that AISRec also has companion implementations for Windows desktop and metro, Linux on Raspberry Pi 2 and the Radxa pro.
Unfortunately, at the moment there does not seem to be a link available to download the software and the video may only be a preview. The video does link to his Taobao shop at http://shop114459024.taobao.com/ (in Chinese use Google Translate), which is where he might release the software when it is ready.
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Over the past few weeks programmer MichelinoK has been working on an Android app that allows the RTL-SDR to be listened to and controlled remotely. The app is called “Remote RTL_UDP” and allows you to control the parameters such as frequency, modulation type and gain settings on a remote rtl_udp server. It also allows you to store frequencies in a database and import frequencies from a SDR# database. The server can be run on a Raspberry Pi, Linux PC or any Linux device that is capable of running rtl_fm.
The post contains a full tutorial on the set up which involves the installation of ezstream and icecast for streaming audio as well as instructions for the installation of the modified version of rtl_fm called rtl_udp which allows remote control of the parameters via udp.
The post Remote RTL_UDP: RTL-SDR Remote Control Android App appeared first on rtl-sdr.com.
Previously we posted about Android programmer Tosis Nikolaos’s last app which was called “Track your flight Europe”. The app allows you to view aircraft tracked via ADS-B received by an RTL-SDR on an offline map.
Now Nikos has written into us once again to let us know about his new app called “Track your flight North America“. It is the same as his previous app, but this one has high resolution offline maps for North America. He also writes that his Europe app has also been updated to support high resolution offline maps. The app costs 5.09 Euros + VAT. To run it you will need an Android device and an RTL-SDR with OTG cable.
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Back in 2015 we posted about the free trial version of AISRec a few times, but we never really saw a full completed version get released. So far this year the full version is still not released, but the programmer Jane Feverlay has created a website and uploaded the latest Windows version of their trial version software.
AISRec is an RTL-SDR compatible AIS decoder that is made for Windows and Android. AIS is an acronym for Automatic Identification System and is a system used by ships to broadcast position and vessel information. By monitoring AIS transmissions with the RTL-SDR we can build a boat radar system. We have a tutorial on this here (using other software).
The last time we tried AISRec we found that it had very good ability at decoding AIS messages, especially very weak ones and was by far the easiest AIS decoder to set up and use on Windows. The features include:
1. Work with all rtlsdr dongles. Allow future support for other SDR devices.
2. Stable reception of AIS signals at as low as SNR 7 dB.
3. Tolerance to frequency drifts > 30 ppm.
4. Dual-channel reception at 161.975 MHz and 162.025 MHz.
5. Channel selectivity > 56 dB.
6. Low CPU usage. No problem for Atom CPU and above.
7. Output all types of AIS messages (including Class A and Class B) in NMEA formats to UDP ports.
8. Convertion of AIVDM to AIVDO messages for your own ship.
9. Display of the received NMEA messages and the statistics.
The author of AISRec writes in an email to us an explains that the trial version has a time limit and an RX message count limit for each run, whereas the registered lite version will not. The pro version will have some additional features. Currently the author has no method for taking in paid registrations, but plans to have this ready in the future. We will post again once registration is available.
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The SDRplay team have been hard at work during the last few weeks. First they announced beta support for Android via SDRtouch, then they announced an improved ADS-B decoder, and finally they have just announced their acquisition of Studio1.
The SDRplay is a 12-bit software defined radio with tuning range between 100kHz – 2 GHz. Many consider it along with the Airspy to be the next stage up from an RTL-SDR dongle.
The author of SDRTouch on Android recently announced support for the SDRplay. SDRTouch is a Android program similar in operation to PC based software like SDR#. To access the beta you can sign up at this link. Currently there is support for up to 2 MHz of bandwidth.
Back in March the SDRplay team released ADS-B decoder software for their SDR with the promise of improving its performance in the near future.
Recently the SDRplay team released an updated version of their ADS-B decoder for the Raspberry Pi which now fully utilizes the full 12-bits of the ADC and takes advantage of the full 8 MHz bandwidth. Jon, the head of marketing at SDRplay writes the following:
We now have an updated beta version of ADS-B for both the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3. This is based upon the 16bit Mutability version of dump1090 developed by Oliver Jowett and unlocks the full 12 bit performance of the RSP1. People should see a significant performance improvement over the dump1090_sdrplus version, which was based upon 8 bit code. The latest beta version can be downloaded in binary form from http://www.sdrplay.com/rpi_adsb.html . Should anyone have questions or feedback, please contact software@SDRplay.com
We plan to eventually compare the SDRplay with the Airspy and RTL-SDR on ADS-B performance. If you are interested we previously did a review of the SDRplay, Airspy and HackRF here, but as the SDRplay did not have ADS-B back then, that particular test was not done.
The last major piece of news is that SDRplay have now acquired the Studio1 SDR software. Studio1 is a paid SDR program, similar in nature to SDR#/HDSDR/SDR-Console. Like HDSDR, Studio1 is a spinoff from the old WinRad software. Their press release reads:
SDRplay Limited has today announced that it has reached an agreement with Sandro Sfregola, (formerly CEO of SDR Applications S.a.s.) to acquire all Rights, Title and Interest in Studio 1 a leading software package for Software Defined Radio applications.
Jon Hudson, SDRplay Marketing Director said: “We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Sandro to acquire Studio 1. Studio 1 is the perfect complement to our SDR hardware products and gives us the ideal platform to deliver a complete class leading SDR solution for our customers. We look forward to working with Sandro and further developing Studio 1 to unlock the full capability of our current and future products”.
Hudson added: “Studio1 has established a strong customer base with users of many other SDR hardware products. Studio 1 will continue to be available as a stand-alone product from WoodBoxRadio http://www.woodboxradio.com/studio1.html for the foreseeable future , but we also look forward to further developing Studio 1 to specifically benefit present and future owners of our products”
Sandro Sfregola added: “I am very pleased to have reached this agreement with SDRplay. The long term future for SDR lies in complete end to end solutions and I feel the SDRplay RSP combined with Studio 1 software gives users an outstanding combination of performance and affordability”.
About Studio 1:
Studio1 was developed in Italy by SDR Applications S.a.s. and has hundreds of happy customers around the world.Studio 1 is known for its user friendly stylish GUI, CPU efficiency and advanced DSP capabilities, including features notavailable on other SDR software packages.
www.sdrapplications.it
About SDRplay:
SDRplay limited is a UK company and consists of a small group of engineers with strong connections to the UK Wireless semiconductor industry. SDRplay announced its first product, the RSP1 in August 2014
www.sdrplay.com
We believe that this is a good move for SDRplay, as one of the major issues with the RSP SDR was the lack of decently supported software.
The post SDRplay Updates: Android Support, ADS-B Decoder Upgrades and Acquisition of Studio1 Software appeared first on rtl-sdr.com.
On the Google Play store a new RTL-SDR compatible app called ‘Aerial TV’ has been released (in beta) by Martin Marinov. Aerial TV allows you to watch DVB-T HD TV on your android device, with an RTL-SDR connected to it via USB OTG cable. Martin is also the author of the popular SDR Touch Android program and the RTL2832U Android driver port.
The new software requires a different DVB-T driver app to be installed first, which is also provided by Martin. This is because the RTL-SDR needs to be operated in a mode different to the way that the SDR drivers use it in. Martin has also open sourced his Android DVB-T driver and it is available on GitHub.
Aerial TV is currently free on the Google Play store, but looks like it may eventually have some in-app purchases. Also, it is currently marked as ‘Unreleased’ on Google Play, which is essentially a beta version, so you might expect there to be some bugs.
Over on YouTube user GiamMa-based researchers SDR R&D IoT has uploaded a video showing Aerial TV scanning for TV channels, and then eventually playing some video.
Last month we posted about Aerial TV, a new Android based DVB-T decoder that works with RTL-SDR dongles. Back then the app was still in beta testing and had a few operational bugs. Now the Aerial TV app has been officially released.
The app is based on the new Android DVB-T driver for RTL2832U devices which is written by Martin Marinov who is also the programmer of Aerial TV. The DVB-T driver is open source, and currently supports RTL2832U devices with the R820T, E4000, R828D, FC0012 and FC0013 tuner chips. Of note is that the R828D also has DVB-T2 support.
Aerial TV is free to download and test, but requires a $7.99 licence to use for more than 30 minutes. To use it you will need an OTG (On-the-go) cable adapter and an RTL-SDR dongle with antenna.
Just watch TV – no data plan or wifi connection required. Aerial TV works by picking up digital TV channels off the air with a regular TV antenna.
You will need a low cost USB TV tuner. You can grab one online for less than €10. Make sure to get an RTL2832 tuner. When it arrives, just connect the provided antenna and start watching. You may need a USB OTG cable to plug the tuner in your Android device. USB OTG cables are inexpensive and easy to find.
Note that your Android device must support USB OTG. If unsure, do a quick search online or consult your Android device manual. Also check that there is DVB-T/DVB-T2 service in your local area by doing a quick search online. Signal needs to be strong enough for Aerial TV to pick it up. For best results use an outdoor aerial.
You get free unlimited access to radio forever. You also get to watch all TV channels and experience all features of Aerial TV during the trial period for free. After the trial period ends you can make a one-off purchase and watch as much TV as you want. Remember: you can keep listening to radio even if the trial has ended!
Q: How do I find a supported dongle?
A: All major RTL2832 (rtl-sdr) dongles are supported. These dongles can be easily purchased online. Just type in “RTL2832” or “RTL2832U” in the search box of your favourite online store.Q: What tuner do I need to watch DVB-T2?
A: If your country has DVB-T2 broadcasts (such as Freeview HD in UK) you will need a DVB-T2 compatible receiver dongle such as R828D in order to watch DVB-T2 with Aerial TV.
