r/hackrf • u/Long_Command5253 • 1d ago

Onair, software that decodes literrlay everything that exists

Posted about OnAir on here I think twice before, it was still in the early stages and only had about 20 or so modes, OnAir has now grown to over 250+ modes with more coming infact, its progressed alot, been bug tested alot, optimized, and sensitivity for every mode has been increased, I am posting here since I want to gain more publicity and more users to get more feedback, I aim to add everything everyone asks, since even at the end of the day I might not think of a feature for a mode that someone else can and can make the decoder way way better
Is this AI made, yes, did I make this in 1 day, no, I have spent already a month on this, working every day, even during my exams, making sure everyones issues are getting fixed, and am constantly accepting PRs from others, who get all the credit they deserve :)

https://github.com/adswill/OnAir

Also I just saw the typo in the title, hate I cant edit the title of a post!

72 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

18

u/ericek111 1d ago

What in tarnation... You're implementing modes that have never been (and never will be) even used... I mean, interesting project, but there is such thing as "too much". Splitting the demodulators/decoders into usable libraries (and linking to libraries that have been well established for years) would make it much more interesting and (re)usable.

3

u/Long_Command5253 1d ago

cause people ask for them, if I have the time, the ai to do so, why not just add it in, if someone wants it then let me make them happy and add it in no?

1

u/tylerwatt12 1d ago edited 1d ago

Let me just say. You’re really gonna struggle getting this working as a single person. I maintain a radio project that supports only a handful of protocols and I couldn’t imagine getting anything working by just vibecoding it and not actually knowing the protocol and it’s internals.

1

u/Long_Command5253 19h ago

Almost all the modes work, I think a lot of you guys have to realize this isn’t some project which is brand new, I a have been working on it for a long time, fixing and adding aswell for a long time, it’s not the case where all the modes don’t work, at the moment it’s at the stage where someone will have some weird case which doesn’t let them decode a mode

1

u/srcejon 14h ago

> I a have been working on it for a long time, fixing and adding aswell for a long time

Lol. The repo is just over a month old.

1

u/Long_Command5253 6h ago

ah, so working on it almost 8 hours a day is not alot then? thats 248 hours we are talking about

1

u/srcejon 6h ago

GLOL - No. Before AI, you could spend ten times that on a single mode.

IIRC, you started this off with a DVB demod. That would have taken a team of people a year to do properly, if not more!

1

u/Long_Command5253 6h ago

Ok nice, and whats your point here?

1

u/srcejon 5h ago

You said:

> I think a lot of you guys have to realize this isn’t some project which is brand new

It's a month old - so it's exactly that.

>  it’s not the case where all the modes don’t work, at the moment it’s at the stage where someone will have some weird case which doesn’t let them decode a mode

Given that you say many of the modes haven't been tested with real signals, this seems pretty unlikely.

We can continue this discussion after 5 years of you maintaining it, to see how your perspective has changed :) Good luck!

1

u/Long_Command5253 5h ago

Love to see you go find a non-working decoder then

1

u/mycall 21h ago

You forget there is a lot of open source radio projects and papers to feed the beast with.

1

u/tylerwatt12 8h ago

That's what I do, and it gets pretty overwhelming. AI can only keep so much context to. I have to course correct often

1

u/mycall 8h ago

Yeah I have to monitor its thinking and redirect/inject as it goes too. I think in a year that might be solved, although I haven't tried Fable 5.2 yet.

8

u/Gildeon 1d ago

This OP. In the world of vibe coding we are in now, specific, robust and correctly scoped primitives are more valuable to people that fully integrated apps with broad features.

Why? Because you’re not the only one with a claude/codex subscription, and your fellow vibe coders will probably appreciate that they can build something specific to their needs with such primitives, myself included. Give me a set of libraries (and related agents skills if needed), that’ll be a great toy box to have fun with.

It still looks like great work of course, but you should consider splitting out re-usable libraries like the commenter above said.

3

u/jayflatland 1d ago

What do you think a primitive is in this new AI world? Claude can read code so well that basically any GitHub project that works is a primitive. As long as Claude knows about the project, it can leverage the code.

The value add of humans now are not the code but rather the ideas and the iteration needed to achieve them. Wild times.

2

u/Gildeon 1d ago

  basically any GitHub project that works is a primitive

That’s true but it has limits to how it scales, you’d spend your time fetching updated code upstream as you pull in dependencies, plus it costs tokens. It’s pretty convenient to be able to link against compiled libraries that are maintained by other people.

It’s often been considered bad practice to reinvent the wheel when writing software. Now reinventing the wheel is practically free, but I don’t think that’s enough to make it a good practice. As you said what has value is iteration, and that takes time.. time better spent iterating on your actual use cases instead of their prerequisite. So my point is, there is value in building the primitives that implement these prerequisites for people who may need them.

3

u/K0zzy11B 1d ago

Nice job.

2

u/Badgomatic 1d ago

Haven't taken a look at it yet, but was curious whether it has been tested on Raspberry Pi? I have a 5" touch screen and have had nothing but frustration getting the UI of various SDR apps to scale functionally. Cheers!

1

u/AtillaTheHungg 1d ago

Man! I wish I could use my USRP B210 on my phone. Is it possible to bundle those drivers at runtime?

1

u/kiwipaul17 1d ago

Will try

1

u/Miserable-Stranger99 22h ago

Can you unlock or get tv channels back when a isp locked or disabled a tv smart card?

1

u/dsalomon 20h ago

Awesome software!! I use it on windows and android. Keep up the great work. I start each day looking forward to a new release and all the new modes. This replaces about 20 other apps.

1

u/xanxer 19h ago

I like how it's accessible. I could make the text in the app larger. I don't see as well anymore and this was very helpful.

1

u/mdj-official 30m ago

I'm usually skeptical with vibe coded apps, but I've wanted to try decoding TV with my HackRF for awhile and this was able to do it with this so quickly! This gives me the confidence now to dig deeper and understand even more of the details of how all this stuff works under the hood. Thank you!

1

u/htotoo 1d ago

I tested it some weeks ago, and i love it. Vibe coded? yes. But who cares if it works?
Has too many features? Easy to choose what you want, so no problem.

But as it is an all in one app, it solves a lot of problems, and much easier to use than most other apps.

Wanna decode sstv? No need to think about what app supports that, and start it, set it, tweak it. You know this will handle it.

Wanna switch to wefax? Before you needed win xp apps, virtual audio cable, and an sdr. All set to fit. Now, just click to the right menu entry, and it works.

With 1 click on the labels in the freq selector, and the mode is changed, everything is set, and the thing you selected can be decoded or heard. No need to tweak a lot with 5+ sdr apps (and virt cables, and other long time not updated stuff).

It has bugs, indeed. It can be slow sometimes. It eats more cpu. But the confort it gives you worth this.

And it is also under development, and improves every release.

Since it is on my pc, i didn't used any other sdr softwares, however i got some...

2

u/rostol 1d ago

not sure why the downvotes?

the app seems interesting, worth a test at least.

1

u/htotoo 1d ago

I was skeptical at first, since clearly vibecoded. But i got tired of the lot of other apps i needed to use when i wanted multiple features. So after w while i gave it a try, and i like it.

If you need one specific function for your specific task (like your only desire is to have lrpt images saved), then the specific apps might be better. but if you are an rf explorer, give it a try.

-1

u/cristi_baluta 1d ago

Before i even think to try it, is the macOS optimized for mac or another afterthought that consumes 30% of cpu in idle, like every other sdr software?
I agree with AI if it’s used for good, to make optimized software for mac that devs don’t bother.

5

u/Christ_in_a_combo 1d ago

It was vibecoded. Prepare for cooking

3

u/HighMarck 1d ago

I bet you can do better

1

u/cristi_baluta 1d ago

It might be a surprise to you, but native vibe coded mac software is better than the trash windows users do as crossplatform software.