dabradio 
dabradio is a Software for Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi for listening to terrestrial Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB and DAB+). It is the little brother of Qt-DAB, the successor of both DAB-rpi and sdr-j-DAB, two former programs by the same author.
Table of Contents
Introduction
dabradio is the little brother of Qt-DAB. The latter is kind of a research vehicle, with lots of options, most of them used by only a few. The need arose to have a smaller brother, just for tuning to and listening to DAB services.
dabradio and Qt-DAB share a lot of functionality, obviously. Nevertheless to avoid even more "ifdef"s in the code, it was decided to maintain a GitHub repository for both of them.
The Qt-free version, the "command line only" version, is named dab-cmdline, and is built around a library that does the DAB decoding. It has its own repository on Github.
Next to these C++ based versions, a version in Java is being developed, it has its own repository on Github and a GUI that is similar to the one for dabradio.
A new feature is that rather than selecting a channel, the software maintains a list of channels that can be received. The list is maintained between program invocations, on program start up, these channels are scanned for services.
The GUI does not provide buttons to select the Mode or the Band. Defaults are Mode 1 and the VHF Band III. In the ".ini" file (a file .dabradio.ini in the home directory of the user) the Mode can be set as well as the band.
The first time the program is started, all channels are scanned, as is the case whenever the "reset" button is touched.
The services are presented in a separate widget, for each service the widget contains some additional information.
Device selection is automated, if a device is connected, the software will detect that and connect to that device. If more than one device is connected, one will be selected.
Features
- DAB (mp2) and DAB+ (HE-AAC v1, HE-AAC v2 and LC-AAC) decoding
- MOT SlideShow (SLS)
- Dynamic Label (DLS)
- Both DAB bands supported (default VHF Band III, can be set in the ini file):
- VHF Band III
- L-Band (only used in Czech Republic and Vatican)
- Scanning function (scanning over all channels in a given band and collecting all services)
- Supports input from various devices:
- SDRplay (both RSP I and RSP II),
- Airspy, including Airspy mini,
- SDR DAB sticks (RTL2838U or similar), and
Data services are not visible to the use, although data as subservice are - limited - implemented.
Windows
Windows releases can be found at https://github.com/JvanKatwijk/dabradio/releases . Please copy them into the same directory you've unzipped http://www.sdr-j.tk/windows-bin.zip as it uses the same libraries.
If you want to compile it by yourself, please install Qt through its online installer, see https://www.qt.io/
Linux: Ubuntu/x64 and Stretch RPI2/3
If you are not familar with compiling then please continue reading by jumping to chapter appImage which is much easier for Linux beginners.
Ubuntu 16.04 (and on) as well as Debian/Stretch on the RPI2 and 3 have good support for Qt5 (note that contrary to Qt-DAB no use is made of the qwt library). For generating an executable under Ubuntu (16.04 or newer) or on the RPI 2/3 running under Stretch, THE FOLLOWING COMMANDS ARE IN A SCRIPT: build-script. It was tested on RPI2/3 running stretch. (For Ubuntu 14.04 look into the package manager for Qt4 packages).
-
Fetch the required components
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install qt5-qmake build-essential g++ git cmake sudo apt-get install libsndfile1-dev qt5-default libfftw3-dev portaudio19-dev sudo apt-get install libfaad-dev zlib1g-dev rtl-sdr libusb-1.0-0-dev mesa-common-dev sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev libqt5opengl5-dev libsamplerate0-dev libqwt-qt5-dev sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev -
Fetch the required libraries
a) Assuming you want to use a dabstick (also known as rtlsdr) as device, fetch a version of the library for the dabstick
wget http://sm5bsz.com/linuxdsp/hware/rtlsdr/rtl-sdr-linrad4.tbz
tar xvfj rtl-sdr-linrad4.tbz
cd rtl-sdr-linrad4
sudo autoconf
sudo autoreconf -i
./configure --enable-driver-detach
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd
b) Assuming you want to use an Airspy as device, fetch a version of the library for the Airspy
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libusb-1.0-0-dev pkg-config
wget https://github.com/airspy/host/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd airspyone_host-master
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
Clean CMake temporary files/dirs:
cd host-master/build
rm -rf *
- Get a copy of the dabradio sources
git clone https://github.com/JvanKatwijk/dabradio.git
cd dabradio
-
Edit the
dabradio.profile for configuring the supported devices and other options. Comment the respective lines out if you don't own an Airspy (mini) or an SDRplay. -
Build and make
qmake dabradio.pro
make
You could also use QtCreator, load the dabradio.pro file and build the executable.
Remark: The executable file can be found in the sub-directory linux-bin. A make install command is not implemented.
Configuring using the dabradio.pro file
Options in the configuration is to select or unselect devices.
Comment the lines out by prefixing the line with a # in the qt-dab.pro file (section "unix") for the device(s) you want to exclude in the configuration.
CONFIG += dabstick
CONFIG += sdrplay
CONFIG += airspy
Audio samples are sent to an audio device using the portaudio library.
Configuring using CMake
The CMakeLists.txt file has all devices and the spectrum switched off as default. You can select a device (or more devices) without altering the CMakeLists.txt file, but by passing on definitions to the command line.
An example:
cmake .. -DSDRPLAY=ON -DRTLSDR=ON -DAIRSPY=ON
will generate a makefile with support for three supported devices, the SDRplay device the AIRSPY device and the RTLSDR based dabsticks.
The default location for installation depends on your system, mostly /usr/local/bin or something like that. Set your own location by adding
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=your installation prefix
For other options, see the CMakeLists.txt file.
SDRplay
The current set of sources provides support for the RSP-I and the RSP-II and the new RSP-1a, it is assumed that at least library version 2.09 is installed.
Qt
The software uses the Qt library,
the CMakeLists.txt assumes Qt5, the dabradio.pro file can
easily be changed to use Qt4.
Raspberry PI
The dabradio software runs pretty well on the author's RPI-2 ans 3 The average load on the 4 cores on the RPI2 is somewhere between 50 and 60 percent, on the RPI3B+ it is well below 50 percent.
One remark: getting "sound" is not always easy. Be certain that you have installed the alsa-utils, and that you are - as non-root user - able to see devices with aplay -L
In arch, it was essential to add the username to the group "audio".
The releases section contains an AppImage developed under and for Raspbian Stretch on an RPI2 and RPI3. Note that libraries for the rtlsdr DABstick and/or the Airspy can be obtained from repositories for Raspbian Stretch. An API library for the SDRplay can be downloaded from sdrplay.com
Use is simple, install the libraries as needed, download the AppImage file, chmod 777 dabradio-ARM.AppImage to set the exec bit and run the program. Running is possible therefore withour compiling anything.
If you want to create your own executable, pls note that an optimal use of the 4 cores of the CPU can be makde by uncommenting (in the ".pro" file)
#DEFINES += __THREADED_DECODING.
#DEFINES += __THREADED_BACKEND
For the CMakeLists.txt file, uncomment
#add_definitions (-D__THREADED_DECODING -D__THREADED_BACKEND) #uncomment for the RPI
appImages for x64 Linux systems and RPI2/3
https://github.com/JvanKatwijk/dabradio/releases contains a generated appImage, Qt_DAB-ARM.Appimage, which is created on Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty), and uses Qt4 (so it basically should run on any x-64 based linux system that isn't too old.). It assumes that you have installed a device, either a dabstick (i.e. rtlsdr), an Airspy or a SDRplay. All further dependencies are included. There is only one file which you have to make executable in order to run. It furthermore contains an -experimental- appImage for use under Stretch on an RPI2/3, dabradio-ARM.AppImage. The same applies here, it assumes an installed device.
Libraries for the dabstick (i.e. rtlsdr) and airspy are part of the appImage. Note that the library for the sdrplay device should be installed from the supplier, i.e. "www.sdrplay.com".
All further dependencies are included
For more information see http://appimage.org/
Comment on some settings
Some values of settings are maintained between program invocations. This is done in the (hidden) file .dabradio.ini in the user's home directory.
Some settings are not influenced by buttons or sliders of the GUI, they will only change by editing the .ini file.
Typical examples are
saveSlides=1
when set to 0 the slides that are attached to audio programs will not be saved. If set to 1 the slides will be saved in a directory /tmp/qt-pictures (Linux) or in %tmp%\qt-pictures (Windows).
picturesPath
defines the directory where the slides (MOT slideshow) should be stored. Default is the home directory.
showSlides=1
when set to 0 the slides will not be shown.
A note on intermittent sound
In some cases, in some periods of listening, the sound is (or at least seems) interrupted. There are two different causes for this
First of all the incoming signal is weak and audio packages do not pass the many controls that are executed. This shows in the widget "technical data", not all the colored bars at the bottom are 100 percent green. An audio package represents 24 milliseconds of audio, loss of a few packages leads to an interruption of the sound.
A second reason has to do with system parameters. Too small a buffersize in the audio driver causes too high a frequency of calls to a callback function. In Linux this shows by an underrun reported by the alsa sound system. The buffer size can be set (in multiples of 256 audio samples) by the value of "latency" in the ".ini" file. The default value is 1.
On my RPI 2 - with Stretch - latency=2 works best.
Copyright
Copyright (C) 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Jan van Katwijk (J.vanKatwijk@gmail.com)
Lazy Chair Computing
The Qt-DAB software is made available under the GPL-2.0.
The SDR-J software, of which the Qt-DAB software is a part,
is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.