July 13, 2026

Airspy WebSpy: A High Performance Web UI Client for Airspy SDRs

Over on X @lambdaprog, (aka Youssef Touil), the creator behind the Airspy line of software-defined radios, has been teasing development of a new web client called "WebSpy" for Airspy software-defined radios. The web client allows users to tune in to a remote Airspy SDR via a web browser interface that mimics the SDR# Windows software. Before WebSpy, it has only been possible to access Airspy devices remotely via the SpyServer server software and the SDR# Windows application.

While the software is still in development and not yet available for download, you can access a demo version (HF server) (Broadcast FM server) that Youssef has currently set up on his own server in France. From the X posts on the development of the software, it seems that WebSpy boasts some impressive efficiency in terms of the low 6 kB/s network bandwidth required. This means that even over slow connections, the FFT and audio should be smooth and clear. The web interface also works well on mobile, providing a touch-optimized interface.

Youssef wrote in and wanted to share some additional information about how SharpIQ and SharpFFT work:

Under the hood, WebSpy streams both the radio signal and the spectrum display using two purpose-built compression codecs: SharpIQ for the channel data and SharpFFT for the FFT display.

A key design choice is what gets streamed: unlike most web receivers, which demodulate on the server and send you compressed audio, WebSpy sends the raw IQ signal of the tuned channel and does all the demodulation right in your browser — the same DSP chain as the gold standard SDR#. This matters more than it might sound: with server-side audio you're listening to a lossy rendition of what the server decided to demodulate, with voice-codec artifacts baked in; with local IQ, the actual signal arrives at your machine, so demodulation, filtering and mode changes happen instantly and the audio quality is limited only by the signal itself, not by an audio codec.

Unlike general-purpose compressors, SharpIQ and SharpFFT were designed from the ground up for radio: they adapt in real time to what's actually happening on the band, spending bits only where there is information worth keeping, while preserving the weak-signal fidelity that SDR users care about — a CW signal buried near the noise floor comes through intact.

The result is that a complete listening session — channel IQ, live spectrum, waterfall and all — typically fits in about 5 kB/s, a fraction of what conventional audio streaming would need. That's low enough to comfortably operate a remote receiver over a modest mobile connection, which is precisely what makes a full SDR experience in a browser tab practical — nothing to install, nothing left behind, just a tab you can close; and at 5 kB/s the stream itself hides in the noise of ordinary web traffic. Discreet SIGINT, if you're so inclined.

It's crazy what you can do with a 6 kB/s link budget nowadays. #airspy #sigint pic.twitter.com/JIItTgTqOb
— prog (@lambdaprog) July 12, 2026

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July 13, 2026

Exploring the Art and Science of Spectral Painting with SDR

Thank you to Paul Maine, who wrote in and wanted to share some experiments he and Gary Schafer have been doing with spectral painting. Spectral painting is the art of drawing pictures directly on the spectrum waterfall, which a software-defined radio makes visible. Paul has written the post below:

What happens when radio technology meets digital artwork? The result is something fascinating called Spectral Painting—the ability to create images that appear inside the radio frequency spectrum.

Gary Schafer (@signalgalaxiesunlimited) and Paul “The SDR Guy” Maine (@paulmaine6433) have teamed up to explore this unique combination of software-defined radio, signal processing, and creativity. Together, they have created companion videos on Spectral Painting and released them at the same time, each approaching the topic from a different perspective. For the best experience, it is recommended to watch Gary’s video first, followed by Paul’s practical demonstration.

Gary begins the journey by diving into the theory behind Spectral Painting. Using GNU Radio flowgraphs and GNU Octave scripts, he explains how images can be transformed into signals and displayed within the frequency spectrum.

Paul then takes Gary’s GNU Radio flowgraph and GNU Octave scripts from theory into practice. Using multiple SDR platforms, he demonstrates how to transmit spectral images using both the HackRF and TRX-DUO SDRs. He then completes the process by receiving and displaying the images using several different SDR receivers, including the RTL-SDR V3, RTL-SDR V4, and Airspy HF+.

Together, these videos provide a complete journey—from understanding the science behind Spectral Painting to seeing it come alive on real SDR hardware.

Below is an example screen capture of Spectral Painting in action.

Start with Gary’s video to learn the concepts and signal processing techniques:

Creating Spectral Paintings using Gnu Radio Companion (and other open source tools)

Watch this video on YouTube

Then watch Paul’s video to see Spectral Painting transmitted and received using real SDR equipment:

E30 Spectral Painting

Watch this video on YouTube

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July 13, 2026

A Paper on Clock Distribution for Phase Coherent Operation of RTL-SDR Receivers

Modifying RTL-SDR dongles to run from the same clock source to create a phase-coherent receiver is something that has been done for many years. The original experiments from 2015 by Tatu Peltola and others are what inspired the creation of the KerberosSDR and KrakenSDR coherent RTL-SDR radio systems for radio direction finding.

Recently, Mykhailo Shumilov, an independent researcher in Ukraine, wrote a paper on running RTL-SDR dongles from the same clock, which may be of interest to those working on coherence experiments. In his experiments, he uses an Si5351A as the reference clock and two RTL-SDR dongles. While his paper doesn't cover any new ground, he presents concrete measurements confirming the phase coherence-stabilizing effect of running two RTL-SDR dongles from the same clock.

AI-Disclaimer: The paper author notes that AI was used to aid in the writing of the paper.

Running two RTL-SDR dongles from a shared clock for phase coherence

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July 7, 2026

Adding HD Radio Support to FM DX Webservers with an RTL-SDR

Thank you to Ivan (NO2CW) for submitting news about how he added HD Radio decoding capability to his FM DX Webserver receiver. The FM DX Webserver is a community of worldwide FM broadcast-band online receivers that mostly use SDRs based on the TEF6686 chip, with a few also using RTL-SDR receivers. HD Radio (aka nrsc5) is a proprietary digital audio standard used by FM broadcasters in North America. It's often observed by SDR users in a waterfall as the two rectangles flanking both sides of a broadcast FM signal. Ivan writes:

A major challenge has been that up until now none of the online receivers were HD Radio capable. I have now added this capability with the help of an RTL V3. The online receiver uses a combination of two receivers: a TEF6686 which is known to be highly sensitive and, when an FM HD Radio signal is present, an RTL V3 automatically kicks in to provide HD radio capability opening up HD1, HD etc audio streams together with bundled album art, traffic and weather. The program was initially conceived by discord user seehed and then further developed by me.

The core code for this plugin was developed by GitHub user seehed and can be found here: https://github.com/Seehed/NRSC5_HDRadio. I had to make a few tweaks to get it fully working.

How the Setup Works: The hardware setup requires both a TEF6686 receiver and an RTL dongle operating simultaneously.

I tested an RTL-SDR V4 first, but the necessary DLLs worked much better with an RTL-SDR V3 in my current build.

By default, the server uses the TEF6686 for browsing the FM band for analog signals. When a user tunes to a frequency where an HD Radio signal is present, the logic switches to "HD Mode" and the RTL V3 takes over. The NRSC5 library is used to process the digital signal. In this mode, users will notice the change in audio quality and the available subcarrier streams (HD1, HD2, HD3, etc.) become visible and selectable.

How Users Can Set It Up: To replicate this, a user would need:

A working FM DX Webserver with a TEF6686.

An RTL-SDR V3 plugged into the same host.

The NRSC5 library installed.

The plugin from the GitHub link above installed and configured in the webserver directory.

Ivan also notes that currently his Miami NO2CW receiver is the only one on the network supporting HD Radio.

HD Radio on FM DX Webserver. Receiving HD Radio inside the fm dx webserver application.

Watch this video on YouTube

HD Radio Added to FM DX Webservers via an RTL-SDR

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July 6, 2026

Demod: An iOS/iPadOS Client for rtl_tcp, SpyServer and KiwiSDR

Thank you to Alphonse Romero for submitting news about the release of his new iOS and iPadOS SDR receiver app called Demod. Demod is a network client that connects to remote SDR servers, so it can be tried out immediately with no dongle needed at all.

The app works as a client for rtl_tcp, SpyServer (Airspy and RTL-SDR), and KiwiSDR, all in a single app. It features a Metal-accelerated waterfall and spectrum display, AM/NFM/WFM/USB/LSB/CW demodulation, and adjustable bandwidth, gain, and squelch. Other features include frequency memories with CSV import and export, AirPlay and Lock Screen controls, and native layouts for both iPhone and iPad. It can also browse and connect to public SpyServers directly from within the app, which is how it can be used with no hardware of your own. The developer notes that it collects no data, with no ads or tracking.

Alphose writes that Demod is a solo project and is available on the US App Store for US$9.99. More information and screenshots can be found on the project website, and the app itself is available on the App Store.

The developer has also provided us with 15 free codes that we will be giving away in one week. To enter the giveaway, simply comment on this post (make sure to include your email address in the comment so that we can send you the code), the X post, or the Facebook post. (UPDATE: ALL CODES HAVE BEEN ALLOCATED NOW, THANKS!)

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July 6, 2026

NyxScope: A Windows Multi-Protocol SDR Decoder Program with Multiple Digital Native Decoders

WARNING: Multiple people have noted that this program is not working as expected and may be overly buggy.

Recently, we've learned about NyxScope, a multi-protocol SDR receiver program for Windows that comes with multiple native decoders built right into the software. Their own description describes this all-in-one program best:

You get spectrum and waterfall, multiple concurrent VFOs, trunked-radio following, digital voice, aviation and marine tracking, paging, ISM sensors, HD Radio, and transcription, in one binary.

NyxScope includes decoders for P25 Phase 1 and Phase 2 voice, EDACS and NXDN control channels, ADS-B, AIS, ACARS, POCSAG, FLEX, LoRa CSS PHY + LoRaWAN MAC, Morse, RDS, CTCSS/DCS, Iridium decoding (with voice), and also includes a signal classification tool, Bluetooth LE scanner, and Whisper voice-to-text transcriber. It also outsources decoding of other protocols to mature decoding software such as multimon-ng, rtl_433, dsd-neo, nrsc5, direwolf, dumpvdl2, dump978, rs41mod where required, noting that the outsourced decoders are bundled with the software, meaning no extra installation work is required.

The software supports RTL-SDR, HackRF, Airpsy, bladeRF, SDRplay, Fobos and PlutoSDR. It also supports using multiple SDRs used in parallel.

The software does not appear to be open source, but it is provided for free with a limitation of 3 concurrent VFOs and a limitation on recording, transcribing, and pager messages. A perpetual per-machine license for $89.95 can be purchased to lift these restrictions and add access to their FCC frequency lookup database.

AI-Disclaimer: While the developers have not noted any use of AI tools, we suspect that AI was used in the creation of this software.

NyxScope Screenshot Scanning the 800 MHz Band

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July 6, 2026

Testing WSPR HF Propagation with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and TAPR Shield Running WsprryPi

Thank you to Simone Spadino (SWL ID I8926BA), who wrote in to share his low-cost WSPR setup. WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter) is an amateur radio mode designed to test propagation paths using very low-power transmissions, with receiving stations reporting spots in real time to the WSPRnet map.

Simone's setup consists of a Raspberry Pi 3B+, which can be made to modulate a square wave RF signal on one of its GPIO pins via the WsprryPi software. Because a square wave generates many harmonics, he used the 20m WSPR shield from TAPR, which provides a low-pass filter to remove them. A dipole made from simple electrical monopole wire was connected to the shield via 50 ohm coax, and the signal was transmitted at 14.0971 MHz.

Transmitting from his rooftop in the center of Bari in southern Italy, Simone had his beacon received in England, Finland, Cyprus, and the Canary Islands, all more than 3100 km away. He repeated the experiment a week later with similar results. This is a reminder of how far low-cost hardware can transmit with a resilient protocol like WSPR.

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July 2, 2026

InmarScope: An Inmarsat AERO and STD-C Decoder with Multichannel Decoding and Automatic Call Following

Over on the SignalsEverywhere YouTube channel, Sarah Rose has released InmarScope, a multichannel L-band Inmarsat decoder that connects directly to an RTL-SDR, Airspy, or HackRF. The software can receive and decode both aeronautical (AERO) and maritime (STC-C / EGC) traffic at the same time. Decoders are dropped directly onto the aligned FFT and waterfall by holding CTRL and left-clicking, and the software lets you stack Aero MSK (600/1200 bps), high-rate OQPSK (10500 bps), AMBE voice (8400 bps), and Inmarsat-C BPSK decoders side by side.

One of the more interesting features is automatic voice-call following. By monitoring the 10500 baud forward-link channels, InmarScope can receive C channel voice assignments and automatically retune the SDR to the assigned frequency, lock the carrier, decode and record the AMBE call, and then hop back to where it was. There is also a two-SDR mode that dedicates a second radio to voice with a live split-view spectrum so one radio stays on the P control channel while the other tunes to voice calls. For assignments that never get broadcast, there is also a Call Hunter feature that uses a squelch threshold to automatically drop the decoder when a call appears. When a call is playing, the built in flight map also decodes the aircraft hex ICAO address and looks it up on airplanes.live, showing the plane's position and route in real time.

Recent updates have added a community-editable band plan, message search and filtering, an IQ recorder that also captures the seconds before you hit record, and a web dashboard for browsing decoded data from a phone.

The software is completely open source on GitHub, and the C++ code can be compiled from source, or a precompiled Windows build is available on sarasforge.dev for $15, with Sarah's Patreon patrons getting it free.

We note that Inmarsat signals such as AERO and STD-C/EGC can be received with our RTL-SDR Blog L-band Patch Antenna, which is available in our store.

Multi-Channel Voice Following Inmarsat Decoder for Windows!