Alpha Version of SDR++ Released

SDR++ is an open source general purpose cross platform SDR program that Alexandre Rouma (@WhatsTheGeekYT) has been working on for the past few months. Recently he released his first Windows Alpha version to the public which is available from the GitHub release page. The SDR++ GUI is inspired by SDR#, however, SDR++ as you might guess is programmed in C++ instead of C#.

In order to use SDR++ on Windows you will first need to have installed PothosSDR for the SoapySDR and volk support. To do this you can follow the instructions here. Thanks to the SoapySDR support it is able to run with most SDRs including the RTL-SDR.

To start the program, select your SDR from the source menu, change the sample rate (which is set to the minimum value by default), then click the play button. We tested it with both an RTL-SDR and HackRF, and both units worked just fine, although at lower sample rates the waterfall was a bit choppy. We do note that the software is very much in the alpha phase with only a few features implemented, and most menu items do not work yet. But the main features including WFM, FM, AM, SSB, CW demodulation as well as the spectrum and waterfall are all functional. Unfortunately there do seem to be a few stability issues as we experienced frequent crashes on our PC.

We'll be watching this software with interest to see how it progresses.

Current Features

  • Uses SoapySDR for wide hardware support
  • Hardware accelerated graphics (OpenGL + ImGui)
  • SIMD accelerated DSP (parts of the DSP are still missing)
  • Cross-platform
  • Full waterfall update when possible. Makes browsing signals easier and more pleasant

Coming soon

  • Multi-VFO
  • Plugins
  • Digital demodulators and decoders
  • Quick replay (replay last n seconds, cool if you missed a short signal)

Small things to add

  • Switchable bandwidth for demodulators
  • Switchable audio output device and sample rate
  • Recording
  • Light theme (I know you weirdos exist lol)
  • Waterfall color scheme editor
  • Switchable fft size
  • Bias-T enable/disable
  • other small customisation options
  • Save waterfall and demod settings between sessions
  • "Hide sidebar" option
  • Input filter bandwidth option

Known issues (please check before reporting)

  • Random crashes (yikes)
  • Gains aren't stepped
  • The default gains might contain a bogus value before being adjusted
  • Clicks in the audio
  • In some cases, it takes a long time to select a device (RTL-SDR in particular)
  • Min and Max buttons can get unachievable values (eg. min > max or min = max);
The SDR++ Interface
The SDR++ Interface
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Nothoro

Works well, very good job.

Anonymous

regsvr32 VCRUNTIME140.dll error i get when trying to install on win 10

Anonymous

does not on win 10

Anonymous

admin please remove got it working

Kushagra Dixit

Open Source.

tester

I only see linux install script line, but how to install in windows not very clear install instruction for dummys

Ryzerth

Hi, author of SDR++ here
The windows install instructions are in the release notes (See release on the github page).
There’s really nothing to it, you just need to extract and run. If you’re missing volk or SoapySDR, you can install PothosSDR that already contains compiled versions of both libs.

tester

Hi thanks,
where to find volk.dll?

tester

Thanks, where to find volk.dll

tester

Will there be any decoders released, like Tetra, NXDN 48/96, DMR

tester

Any update?

nobody

other than the black it looks like a knockoff of SDRsharp

Juan

Exactly what I thought but wondered if I was somehow missing the point 😉

Bert

The big differences, as I see it (other than C++ vs C# code) are:
1 It is open source (GPLv3), SDRsharp is closed source.
2 It will eventually run naively on OSX, SDRsharp does not.
3 It will eventually run naively on Linux, SDRsharp does not.