Tagged: Automatic dependent surveillance broadcast

November 5, 2026

ErgissVAG F16: An F-16 Cockpit-Style Android Car Dashboard with RTL-SDR ADS-B and Airband Receivers

Thank you to Gabriel Diaconu from Iasi, Romania, for writing in and sharing ErgissVAG F16, an Android car dashboard app that shows OBD2 data on a head-up display styled like an F-16 cockpit. Its latest release adds two RTL-SDR pages for car head units and phones, which allow it to receive the AM airband and ADS-B.

The AM airband receiver covers 118-137 MHz with 25 and 8.33 kHz channel spacing and includes active/standby frequencies, scanning with squelch, and a live spectrum. The ADS-B page uses a 1090 MHz decoder written from scratch and shows aircraft on a radar-like display. Gabriel saw several airliners near Iasi sending altitude and speed but no position, consistent with the GNSS interference reported in Gabriel's region, and the app flags these as "GNSS-x" (we've previously posted about mapping GNSS interference through ADS-B data).

Rather than relying on a separate driver app, ErgissVAG F16 talks to the dongle directly through Android's USB Host API using a port of librtlsdr, with no root needed, and rtl_tcp is supported as an option. Gabriel tested it with an RTL-SDR Blog V3 on a powered USB hub, as it drops out on bare OTG. The app is available on Google Play with a free 7-day trial, then a one-time €9.99 Pro unlock.

ErgissVAG F16 Airband Tuner & ADS-B TCAS-Style Traffic Display

October 16, 2026

LakeShark Update: Using an LR2021 LoRa Chip as an SDR for Portable P25, POCSAG and FM Reception on the ESP32-P4

Back in September, we posted about LakeShark, Samuel Reynolds’ (aka SAMS0N1TE) T-Display P4 ESP32-P4 firmware that turns a USB-connected RTL-SDR into a handheld P25 Phase 1, POCSAG, and FM receiver.

Samuel has now written in to share news that with the T-Display P4 variant containing a Semtech LR2021 LoRa chip, LakeShark no longer needs an RTL-SDR at all. Instead, it can pull raw I/Q samples directly out of the built-in LR2021 LoRa transceiver chip and demodulate them on the ESP32-P4. Back in May, we posted Zoltán Papp and team's discovery that showed how an LR2021 could receive ADS-B. But this relied on the chip’s built-in OOK mode.

With raw I/Q available, the chip’s built-in modes no longer limit what it can receive. Both of the LR2021’s RF paths work, providing continuous coverage from 100 MHz to 2.74 GHz, and no upconverters, external tuners, or extra front-end hardware are used. The sample rate is relatively low at 250 Ksps max, meaning only a narrow bandwidth slice is available, but this is more than large enough for narrowband channels like P25. Samuel notes that it’s pretty unreal being able to listen to his local analog NFM fire department channels from such a low-power chip.

Smanuel notes that the LR2021 is still pretty new, and few products use them. However, it is possible to DIY a receiver for about $28 with Waveshare’s Core2021 LR2021 modules and their ESP32-P4-WIFI6 board. Samuel also has an experimental transmit path working, which has sent custom waveforms, temperature packets and P25 test-tone bursts. In one test, an independent receiver decoded 72 P25 voice frames from a single transmission and recovered the expected tone.

The radio access layer has been released as a separate project called LR2021-SDR. It includes a portable C library, capture firmware, waveform tools and measurements, along with graphs from a real received P25 call and a recording of the recovered transmit tone. The updated handheld firmware is available on the LakeShark GitHub.

LakeShark Running on A LilyGO T-Display-P4 next to a HackRF (left) and Flipper Zero (right).

October 1, 2026

FoxSDR Updates: Node Canvas, Single Map Display, Linux+Android Builds, Locating Air Traffic Radar Positions

Thank you to wonderingStars for writing in and sharing updates to his FoxSDR software program. FoxSDR is a new AI-coded software that supports all common protocols and SDRs.

The first update that wonderingStars notes is the addition of a node canvas where you can wire radios, decoders, speakers, and displays together. It can run up to five SDRs at the same time, each with its own decoders. This is now FoxSDR's main screen.

The second update is a map that can accept multiple inputs from multiple decoders, allowing users to plot various data streams such as ADS-B, AIS, amateur high-altitude balloons, and more on a single map.

The third update is that Linux x64 builds are now published, although they are noted to still be in development. An Android arm64 build has also been released in alpha form. To access this, users will need to sign up to test.

The final update adds a new radar sweep feature, which locates the positions of air-traffic radars around you by listening to 1090 MHz. The author explains:

Secondary surveillance radars rotate and interrogate aircraft transponders as their beam passes. Aircraft that broadcast ADS-B also report their own position, so every reply they give reveals where a radar was pointing at that moment. Radar Sweep collects these replies over hours and works out each radar's location, rotation speed and direction on its own. It then draws bearing lines towards aircraft that answer the radar but broadcast no position, and marks a position where two radars' lines cross.

It is the same idea as PlanePlotter's Beamfinder, except that Radar Sweep finds the radar sites itself instead of being given them. It is not affiliated with PlanePlotter or its authors.

In testing on a 12.8-hour recording, it confirmed two radars, each within about 5 km of a published airfield position. Bearings to held-out aircraft had a median error of 0.3°.

You need a 1090 MHz antenna, an SDR running at 2 MS/s or more, and a few hours of traffic. Radar Sweep remembers the radars it finds and never reveals your location.

It is available free to FoxSDR users in the United States.

The author also wanted to share an upcoming feature, which is the GUI builder, which will allow you to customize your own GUI.

AI Disclaimer: wonderingStars describes their company as a human-gated AI company, and FoxSDR is AI coded.

October 1, 2026

RF-Traffic-Monitor: Track Aircraft, Ships, Drones and Radiosondes in One Program

Thank you to Stefanos (Steeod) for sharing a new program he created, "RF-traffic-monitor." Stefanos created this program because he initially wanted to install adsb.im (an ADS-B feeder image that also tracks ships, radiosondes, and ACARS/VDL2/HFDL) on Windows 10, but was unsuccessful in doing so, as adsb.im is written for Linux machines.

So, to get around this, Stefanos decided to fire up ChatGPT to write his own similar Windows program. The end result was RF-traffic-monitor, which is capable of tracking aircraft, ships, and radiosondes using an RTL-SDR or HackRF. It can also use the SDR to decode ACARS, VDL2, and HFDL. With a compatible WiFi adatper the software is also capable of tracking drones via Wi-Fi Remote ID.

AI Disclaimer: The author notes that this program was written by ChatGPT.

September 17, 2026

LakeShark: P25 Phase 1, FM, POCSAG, ADS-B and Sub-GHz with an RTL-SDR on the LilyGO T-Display P4 (ESP32-P4)

Thank you to Samuel Reynolds (aka SAMS0N1TE on GitHub), for writing in and sharing with us his project called 'LakeShark'. LakeShark is firmware for the LilyGO T-Display P4 (an ESP32-P4-based microcontroller with a 4.1 Inch touchscreen, detachable keyboard, GPS, and nine-axis motion sensor), which allows a USB-connected RTL-SDR Blog V3 or V4 to be used for P25 Phase 1 trunking, FM, POCSAG, ADS-B, and sub-GHz capture. Samuel writes:

LakeShark supports P25 Phase I conventional and trunked voice, analog FM, POCSAG pager decoding and 1090 MHz ADS-B, with a spectrum display and waterfall for tuning around.

There are a few other things that might interest your readers:

Passive sub-GHz pulse recording with export to Flipper .sub files, so captures can be transferred to a Flipper and opened in its Sub-GHz app.'

Offline maps showing aircraft and MeshCore nodes, plus GPS track recording with GPX export.

Mixed P25/FM scan lists and a field journal for saving notes with radio readings, position and sensor data.

MeshCore messaging and LoRa experiments using the onboard SX1262. The optional MIX-RF keyboard adds CC1101, nRF24 and NFC tools.

The T-Display-P4 touchscreen works on its own, but you can also use the keyboard or connect a Flipper Zero over Bluetooth. LakeShark also supports a headless ESP32-P4 Nano receiver controlled from the Flipper. That lets you keep the radio and antenna in a bag while tuning from the Flipper.

Version 2.2.0 is available now. Experimental work includes manually tuned P25 Phase II decoding, HackRF support and GPS-based scan filtering. Those have separate limitations documented in the wiki. Next steps include live-RF validation, Phase II automatic call following and further work on portable power and everyday usability.

There’s also an experimental CELL WATCH app for surveying cellular-band activity and comparing it against a saved baseline. It’s meant for spotting changes worth investigating, rather than identifying a cell site as malicious or claiming to detect an IMSI catcher.

LakeShark builds on xtrsdr, OP25 and other open-source projects. ADS-B Scope also provided a reference for part of the aircraft position decoding. Full credits are in the README.

Showcase, photos and overview:
https://terminalbay.com/?m=lakeshark-showcase

Source and credits:
https://github.com/SAMS0N1TE/LakeShark

Version 2.2.0 downloads:
https://github.com/SAMS0N1TE/LakeShark/releases/tag/v2.2.0

Flipper companion app:
https://github.com/SAMS0N1TE/LakeShark-Flipper

Wiki and guides:
https://terminalbay.com/?m=wiki

LakeShark is part of a growing repertoire of ESP32-P4 microcontroller RTL-SDR applications. Just last week we posted about OrcSDR, a standalone RTL-SDR application built around the M5Stack Tab5. Back in May, we also posted about a portable open-source 1090 MHz ADS-B firmware for the LILYGO T-Display-P4.

Previously, RTL-SDR applications have only run on full general-purpose CPUs running an OS like Windows/Linux/MacOS/Android. But the ESP32-P4 has shown that commodity microcontrollers are now powerful enough to run an RTL-SDR too, via custom bare-metal drivers and software.

September 16, 2026

Frugal Radio: A Six SDR Setup with KrakenSDR and SDRplay for ADSB, ACARS, VDL2, P25

Over on YouTube, Rob from the 'Frugal Radio' channel has uploaded a video showing his multi-SDR monitoring setup that consists of a KrakenSDR, SDRplay RSP1A, and a cheap 12-year-old computer. The KrakenSDR is a 5-channel coherent SDR based on RTL-SDRs, and when connected to a computer, it appears as five independent RTL-SDRs that you can use for any purpose.

Rob currently uses three out of the five channels on the KrakenSDR to monitor three aviation digital signals: ADS-B, ACARS, and VDL2. The SDRplay is used on the same PC to monitor a 700 MHz P25 digital voice system. Rob uses the ADSB.im Docker image, which lets users feed multiple flight aggregation services, such as ADSBExchange, FlightRadar24, FlightAware, etc., all on one device.

In the future, Rob hopes to add Inmarsat L-band reception with the spare channels on the KrakenSDR, which will be received by a Discovery Dish.

6 x SDR, 4 x monitor PC decoding ADSB, ACARS, VDL2, P25

Watch this video on YouTube

September 15, 2026

AVARE ADS-B Receiver for Android Updated

All the way back in 2014, we posted about Avare ADS-B Receiver, which back then was a simple RTL-SDR ADS-B receiver and map for Android devices. The author of this app, TFL, recently wrote in and shared that the app is now a modern, fully featured ADS-B app, having added many new features such as UAT decoding with aviation weather products and NEXRAD weather radar/lightning strikes shown on the map, aircraft pictures, better SDR support, traffic filters, and audio alerts.

ADSB Receiver lets you collect live air traffic data directly on your Android device using any RTL-SDR (RTL2832U) dongle and an OTG cable. No cloud. No fees. Just raw RF decoded in real time.

Dual-band reception — 1090 MHz Extended Squitter (ES) for worldwide traffic, and 978 MHz UAT for US general aviation traffic plus integrated weather products (METAR, TAF, PIREP, SIGMET, AIRMET, WINDS, NOTAM)

Live aircraft details — tap any target on the map to pull a live photo alongside aircraft type and registered operator

NEXRAD weather imagery — receive official NEXRAD radar images over UAT 978 MHz

Network send/receive —

Forward all received data to any GDL90-capable EFB app (AvareX, ForeFlight, iFlyGPS, DroidEFB, and others)

Stream dump1090/dump978 frames to any SDR tool on your network, or ingest from an external source

Bias Tee and Gain support — power an external LNA or active antenna, adjust Gain as needed

Proximity alerts — configurable range-based traffic warnings with optional callsign filtering; useful for drone pilots monitoring airspace

Data logging — save all received data

Metric support — instead of imperial values

Webpage: https://hiz.ch/index.php/adsb-receiver-avare-adsb

Play Store Links:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bs.Avare.ADSB
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bs.Avare.ADSB.Pro

September 15, 2026

FoxSDR: A From-Scratch Software-Defined Radio Receiver for Windows

Thank you to an anonymous contributor (known only as wonderingStars on GitHub) for writing and sharing their project, 'FoxSDR'. FoxSDR is advertised as a 'software-defined radio receiver written from scratch'. Like most receiver programs, it includes a spectrum and waterfall and various demodulation modes.

Key features include a Windows desktop application and optional browser-based interface, a built-in ADS-B decoder and map, and native support for drivers for the HackRF, Airspy R2/Mini/HF+, RTL-SDR, SDRplay RSPs, Mirics MSi2500, RX888 mk2 and the ALDAMN-Pluto. Being browser-based means that the server can run remotely and be placed close to the antenna to reduce signal losses, and the SDR can be accessed from any networked device. They have also recently added AIS, APRS, SSTV, Morse, RTTY, POCSAG, Inmarsat-C, ACARS, SSTV, NOAA APT, GOES HRIT/LRIT, WEFAX, two-tone paging, EAS/SAME alerts, 406 MHz distress beacons, VOR, ERT utility meters, 433 MHz weather sensors, a satellite pass predictor and map, a band survey engine, and OpenStreetMap map imagery.

The contributor writes that FoxSDR is currently Windows-only; however, they will add full Linux support once the Windows version is completely stable. They note that they are in the final stages of the beta and that, based on telemetry, they have over 100 installs in the last month and a few dozen people using it on any given day. They note that their three-year development plan includes support for all operating systems, including Android.