Tagged: websdr

HamDash: A Free Real-Time Ham Radio Dashboard with a Browser-Based RTL-SDR Receiver

Thank you to several readers who have pointed us to HamDash. HamDash is a new free real-time ham radio dashboard that aims to be the always-on monitor for your radio shack. Built by Peter (G0LIW), the web-based app combines HF propagation, space weather, DX cluster spots, POTA and SOTA activations, a contest calendar, and a greyline map into a single customizable view. There's no account or subscription, and it runs in any browser, making it a good fit for a dedicated second monitor, a tablet, or a Raspberry Pi sitting in the shack. We note that despite being free, the project doesn't appear to be open source, as we could not find any public source code repo.

The dashboard includes live solar flux, K-index, X-ray flare, and aurora data so you can tell when the bands are open, plus VOACAP-based propagation predictions and Met Office/MeteoAlarm weather alerts useful for portable operating. A Visual Layout Builder lets you arrange modules into rows and slots exactly how you want, and a touchscreen-friendly on-screen keyboard makes it usable on a mouse-only or kiosk-style setup.

Of interest to RTL-SDR users, HamDash includes a browser-based SDR receiver called SDRCOM that works with an RTL-SDR V3 or V4 dongle over WebUSB, so you can run it in Chrome or another Chromium browser like Edge or Opera directly. The free SDRCOM Lite edition is included with HamDash and covers AM/FM/SSB/CW tuning, a waterfall display, an FT8 decoder, a basic 3-band EQ, and a 100-slot memory bank. There's also a paid SDRCOM Pro edition for a one-year license with no auto-renewal $9.99 fee that adds enhanced waterfalls, FT8 and FT4 decoders, an ADS-B engine with 3D aircraft tracking, 4-band noise-reduction DSP, an auto-lock band scanner, a WAV recorder with scheduler, and a 1000-slot memory bank.

AI-Disclaimer: While not advertised as AI-coded, the author's company, Nemeta AI Software Services LLC, and the UI-style hints at AI development tools having being used.

HamDash SDR Web App Running an RTL-SDR
HamDash SDR Web App Running an RTL-SDR

No-SDR: A New Open Source Multi-User WebSDR for RTL-SDR

Thank you to George (gbozo), who has just released no-sdr (named from No(de)-sdr), a new open source multi-user WebSDR for the RTL-SDR written in Go and node JS. A WebSDR allows users to run an SDR remotely and access it over a local or internet network connection. This is useful for bringing an SDR closer to an antenna, instead of running a long, lossy coax cable, and for sharing SDRs among multiple networked users.

The no-SDR software runs on x86 or Raspberry Pi, is Dockerized, and supports multiple RTL-SDR dongles being connected at the same time. On the DSP side, it currently implements WFM (stereo + RDS), NFM, AM, AM Stereo (experimental stereo C-QUAM), USB, LSB, CW, and raw IQ, with digital decoders like ADS-B, AIS, APRS, POCSAG, FT8, and WSPR planned. There is also an "Identify Song" button that uses the Audd API to ID currently playing tracks on WFM, NFM, and AM.

George also points out that he's implemented an innovative lossless FFT codec with a very high ~10:1 compression ratio, as well as the Opus codec for audio. The result is a 12-15 kB/s transmission rate with a 12 FPS FFT with 8192 bins and AM demodulation compressed audio. 

The no-sdr Web Interface
The no-sdr Web Interface

Echo: KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR and FM-DX iOS Browser App now Officially Released

Back in February, we posted about the beta release of Echo, an iOS app designed for browsing global web-based KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR, and FM-DX software-defined radios. Mark, the developer of Echo, has now officially released the app on the Apple App Store for free.

Echo turns your iPhone and iPad into a global radio receiver. Browse 2,000+ KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR, and FM-DX servers to hear shortwave, aviation, numbers stations, and distant FM in real time.

More information can also be found on the new echosdr.com website.

Echo iOS KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR and FM-DX Browser App
Echo iOS KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR and FM-DX Browser App

PhantomSDR: WebSDR Software for the RX888 MKII and Other SDRs

Recently Reddit user magicint1337 brought attention in a post to PhantomSDR, a web SDR program for the RX888 MKII SDR. PhantomSDR is not new, having been first uploaded to GitHub two years ago, but it appears that it hasn't gained much attention so far. Web SDR software allows an SDR to be accessed publically or privately remotely over an internet connection. He writes:

PhantomSDR is a Web SDR Software that can sample the whole HF Band using the RX888 MK II, it utilizes the GPU to do so efficiently, the CPU can also be used but has to be strong enough to handle it.

The Software itself supports nearly all Devices, as they are passed from another program like rx_sdr to PhantomSDR. It features high quality Waterfall Zoom efficiently, it can handle hundreds if not thousands of users depending on the Hardware and is open source. There is also a sdr-list linked below.

It's a good alternative to OpenWebRX or WebSDR as it's easy to set up and can handle higher bandwidths and more users than the other alternatives i named. Decoders will also come and run in WebAssembly on the Client, so the Server has no Usage and can handle many Users. It can also handle higher bands, for example VHF.

It is developed further and further because it's open-source and everybody can help develop it further!

List: https://sdr-list.xyz
Software: https://github.com/PhantomSDR/PhantomSDR

The author of PhantomSDR also chimes in on the comments noting:

Author of PhantomSDR here, wondering where all the traffic to the github repo came from and discovered someone has posted it here.

This is started off as project to publish a self-made direct sampling SDR to the internet. Then it grew to became a learning project about SDR and DSP. I picked RX888 as the SDR to put in the screenshot due to it being easily available as compared to the one I built myself. This wasn't really meant to be much apart from a fun learning exercise!

I wanted to open source this because I think others might find it useful also to host higher bandwidth SDRs, or just have a different user interface.

sdr-list.xyz is made by a contributor to the project, but I would prefer to have more infrastructure under the PhantomSDR domain. This will happen once I get a suitable domain name and the server code up. And yes it will be https and the server will be open source.

Currently, there appears to be one publicly hosted server that can be accessed via the list at sdr-list.xyz. 

This web SDR software is reminiscent of the University of Twente WebSDR software which is currently closed source. It is also similar to KiwiSDR and OpenWebRX which is also an online web-based SDR system.

We note that there has been controversy over the RX888 SDR in the past as developers of popular software in the SDR community such as SatDump and SDR++ have frowned on it due to its poor driver support, the lack of any developer support from the manufacturer, and poor overall RF design.

UPDATE: Jie Feng, the author of the software would like to add that the official server list is at https://phantomsdr.github.io/servers. sdr-list.xyz is a third party list set up by a fan, and Jie is working out how to integrate it with his official list. Jie also notes that PhantomSDR also supports many other SDR's like RTL-SDR, HackRF, SDRplay RSP etc. 

Jie has also provided a follow-up Reddit post here. 

PhantomSDR Screenshot
PhantomSDR Screenshot

Financial Times Story about Ukraine Radio Monitoring with WebSDRs

The Financial Times has recently run a video story on how hobbyist WebSDR setups are being use to record Russian radio communications during the war on Ukraine.

In these modern times, we would expect the Russian military to be making full use of encrypted radio communications on the battlefield. But early on in the invasion it came to be clear that much of the Russian forces are much less advanced than first thought, and are using cheap civilian unencrypted radios that anyone nearby can listen to with an RTL-SDR or via a web connected SDR.

The FT story focuses on how open source contributors from all over the world are helping to monitor internet connected WebSDRs that are close enough to receive Russian radio communications. And how volunteers are helping translate, confirm authenticity, and collect information about possible war crimes. 

If you are interested, previously we posted about a similar video story from the New York Times, and have covered various bits of radio related news from the war in two previous posts [1][2].

Ukraine's battle of the airwaves | FT

Decoding HFDL ACARS with a WebSDR and PC-HFDL

In the previous episode Rob from the Frugal Radio YouTube channel showed us how to decode HF ACARS using PC-HFDL and an HF capable SDR such as the Airspy HF+. In that episode he mentioned that it is possible to decode HF ACARS using a WebSDR as well.

In this weeks episode, Rob shows us how to do just that, making use of WebSDR receivers and the PC-HFDL software. Like the previous episode we see how to plot the aircraft HF ACARS position data on Google Earth and how to read and interpret some example messages received.

Decoding HFDL ACARS with a WebSDR and PC-HFDL

TechMinds: Using Public Online SDRs without SDR Hardware

This weeks video on the TechMinds channel explores the various online web SDRs that are available to access for free. Accessing these online SDRs does not require any hardware apart from a PC and internet connection, although of course you are then receiving signals from a different location to yourself. 

In the video he shows how to access the SDR# Spy Server Network which mostly consists of Airpsy and RTL-SDR units, the SDR-Console V3 Server network which consists of a wide array of different SDRs, the browser based WebSDR network which is mostly soundcard based SDRs but also RTL-SDR and other SDRs, and finally the KiwiSDR network which is made up of KiwiSDRs.

Using Software Defined Radio Without SDR Hardware - WebSDR

Frugal Radio: 2020 SDR Guide Ep 2 – Using Free Online SDRs

Over on his YouTube channel Frugal Radio has released the second episode in his 2020 SDR Guide series. In this video, Frugal Radio shows how to connect to remote SDRs such as KiwiSDR OpenWebRX, WebSDR, SDR-Console v3 Servers, and SDR# SpyServers. He shows how to use these remote SDRs to monitor long range aviation channels, amateur radio operators, and VHF Public Safety channels in the US. He also demonstrates how to decode HFDL signals from aircraft using WebSDR and free software, and verifies the aircraft locations via online tracking sites.

2020 SDR Guide Ep 2 : How to use over 500 remote SDRs free online (webSDR, KiwiSDR & HFDL decode)