Thank you to Matt Cheramie, who wrote in to let us know about his new software called GopherTrunk, a new RTL-SDR compatible radio scanner that follows digital trunked-radio voice calls and decodes them into audio. Gopher Trunk runs on a pool of RTL-SDR dongles and ships as a single ~10 MB static binary for Linux, macOS, and Windows. There are no C dependencies, so neither librtlsdr nor libusb are required at build or runtime, which makes deployment on a fresh machine or Raspberry Pi very straightforward.

On the protocol side, GopherTrunk handles control-channel decoding for P25 (Phase 1 and 2), DMR, TETRA, NXDN, Motorola Type II, EDACS, LTR, MPT 1327, dPMR, D-STAR, and YSF. The voice path is written in pure-Go and implements IMBE and AMBE+2 vocoders directly, removing the dependency on external DVSI or mbelib. The interface is terminal-based, but also includes a full browser-based operator console. There is also a configuration importer that parses RadioReference.com PDF exports and CSV bundles straight into the daemon config.

Matt notes that while the engine is running end-to-end, he is looking for SDR enthusiasts to test it against real-air captures to help refine the on-air FEC layers and vocoder audio levels. Prebuilt releases and the quick start guide are available at gophertrunk.org/downloads, and the full source is on GitHub. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome if you give it a try.