welle.io: A New RTL-SDR & Airspy DAB/DAB+ Decoder Available for Windows/Linux

Thanks to Albrecht Lohofener for submitting to us his new software package called ‘welle.io’ which is a free DAB and DAB+ decoder and player that supports the RTL-SDR (directly or also via rtl_tcp) and Airspy software defined radios. The software can be run on both Windows and Linux, and also supports Raspberry Pi 2/3 and cheap Chinese Windows 10 tablets.

Albrecht writes that his software is a fork of the qt-dab codebase, with the development goal being to create an easy to use DAB/DAB+ software receiver. The software is still under heavy development, and Albrecht mentions that he is looking for fellow developers and testers to help improve the software and report any bugs. Albrecht writes:

I’m proud to introduce a new open source DAB/DAB+ reception application welle.io https://www.welle.io. welle.io is a fork of qt-dab http://github.com/JvanKatwijk/qt-dab (old dab-rpi and sdr-j-dab) with the goal to develop an easy to use DAB/DAB+ reception application. It supports high DPI and touch displays and it runs even on cheap computers like Raspberry Pi 2/3 and 100€ China Windows 10 tablets. As input devices welle.io supports rtlsdr and airspy.

Currently daily Windows binary builds are available over on the projects GitHub. For Linux and Raspberry Pi users you’ll need to compile the code from source, but in the future he plans to provide Ubuntu snaps.

We gave the welle.io software a brief test and it ran as expected. There is an automatic channel scan feature which scans through all the possible DAB channels and an advanced mode for seeing technical information such as the frequency, SNR and error rates. The software also has a nice touchscreen friendly GUI which automatically downloads and displays the DAB/DAB+ program guide information.

Welle.io DAB/DAB+ decoder for the RTL-SDR and Airspy.
Welle.io DAB/DAB+ decoder for the RTL-SDR and Airspy.

19 comments

  1. Paul

    Does anyone know of a DAB+ that can be downloaded onto sd card and the universe loaded onto Windows CE car stereo head unit?

  2. Sean

    Hi Bertie, I’ve just seen that this thread is getting on for 5 years old! I must check out QT-dab if it is still going. Thanks for the info, it’s still useful despite it being old hat now. 73!

  3. Dean

    Wanting to know if anybody has tried this program with Windows 7 64 desktop? And if so if problems installing it? Already have a couple of Windows 7 programs using my NooElec SDR.

  4. Sean Gilbert

    Works really well on an Airspy R2 on Win 10/64. I’m receiving 56 ‘channels’ (stations), far more than I was when using the SDR-J DAB receiver, and far less dropouts. I would imagine that if I were to use a decent DAB antenna, the results would be even better. The antenna used is a Cross Country Wireless Active Loop up at 7m.

    • Bertie

      That is odd because from what I can see the DAB backend is sdr-j-dab (which is now called qt-dab), this is a snazzy UI (but the backend is mostly unchanged). Maybe compare this to the latest qt-dab ( https://github.com/JvanKatwijk/qt-dab/releases ), because my guess is if you are calling it sdr-j still you are running an old version.

  5. Max

    It works correctly on my laptop i5-3320M 2.6Ghz, as far as i don’t use the browser or other software. Nice search function with spectrum view. I receive two channels on 224 and 227 Mhz. Sometimes it locks when i exit with the exit button. I did not see a stop button, had to exit the software to stop decoding and use the browser.
    http://pasteboard.co/kJxPxFjX.jpg

  6. Tel

    Performance appears very dependant upon the USB chipset. Works fine on my laptop but keeps dropping out on my desktop.

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