Software-defined radio · iPhone & CarPlay

The radio spectrum around you,
on your phone.

Airwave Scan turns a Raspberry Pi and a low-cost RTL-SDR into a location-aware scanner you drive from your iPhone — a live map, 30⁠+ digital decoders, a DMR net finder, and real HF propagation.

30+ decoders 13,000+ channels CarPlay-native Works offline
What it does

One app for the whole spectrum

From listening to your local fire dispatch to catching a DMR net the moment someone keys up — Airwave Scan does it from the driver's seat.

Location-aware

As you travel, it surfaces nearby public-safety, weather, marine, aviation and ham channels from a cloud catalog of 20,000+ frequencies — then scans the ones that are actually live.

Listen anywhere

Stream live audio to your iPhone over your home network, your car hotspot, or a secure link from across the country — with a CarPlay-native interface and low-latency Opus.

30+ decoders

Aircraft (ADS-B), ships (AIS + DSC), ACARS/VDL2, DMR & digital voice, FT8/FT4/JS8/WSPR, CW/RTTY/PSK31, NAVTEX, 406 MHz beacons, train & meter telemetry, weather alerts & balloons — decoded on the Pi in real time.

Live map

Planes, boats, APRS stations, weather balloons and HF beacons plotted together — colored by signal strength, with grid, grayline, MUF and repeater overlays. Tap any track for the details.

HF propagation

A one-tap FT8 sweep band-hops all of HF and reports, in plain English, which bands are open and to where — cross-checked against live DX cluster spots.

Coming-up agenda

A single time-ordered feed of what's about to happen: satellite passes, DMR nets, contests, POTA/SOTA activations, shortwave broadcasts and weather-fax charts — each a tap to tune.

DMR net finder

It mines BrandMeister to learn which talkgroups run recurring nets, shows a live badge the instant one keys up, and links the net to your hotspot so you hear it — one tap, right slot.

Clean audio

A full noise-reduction suite — spectral, RNNoise, DeepFilterNet, libSpecBleach and a noise blanker — plus wide "hi-fi" eSSB and one-tap recording to a shareable file.

Pictures from the air

Decode SSTV images and shortwave Weather Fax charts as they paint, line by line — and save them straight to your Photos.

Explore by activity

Pick your corner of the spectrum

The same scanner, focused on what you chase. Each guide goes deep on the features, modes and screens for that world.

Ham Radio · HF

FT8 & the weak-signal modes, live propagation, DX spots, weather fax, SSTV, a logbook, and a noise-reduction stack for the low bands.

Open guide

Ham Radio · VHF/UHF & Satellite

2 m/70 cm FM & repeaters, APRS, DMR/Fusion/D-STAR, the DMR net finder, and satellite passes with a sky view and live Doppler.

Open guide

Aviation

Track aircraft with ADS-B, read ACARS & VDL Mode 2 datalink, and tune the air-band voice for towers, approach and center.

Open guide

Marine

Follow vessels with AIS, catch DSC distress and NAVTEX, watch 406 MHz EPIRBs, and tune marine VHF and the NOAA weather channels.

Open guide

Weather

NOAA Weather Radio and decoded SAME alerts for your county, HF weather-fax charts, and radiosonde balloons plotted as they climb.

Open guide

Public Safety

Your town's fire, EMS and local-government dispatch on conventional channels — location-aware, receive-only, with paging decode.

Open guide

Build the hardware

Which Raspberry Pi, which SDR dongles, antennas, upconverters and filters — a plain-English parts guide to put real signal into the app.

Setup guide
How it works

Three tiers, one seamless scanner

A small always-on radio does the RF. Your phone orchestrates. The cloud knows what's broadcasting where.

01 · THE RADIO

Raspberry Pi + RTL-SDR

A pocket-sized edge box tunes the airwaves and runs every decoder on-device — no cloud round-trip for the RF.

  • Multi-dongle tuner scheduler
  • Real-time DSP & demod
  • Self-healing USB + hot-plug
02 · THE APP

iPhone & CarPlay

The orchestrator: it draws the map, plays the audio, and tells the Pi what to tune and decode — online or fully offline.

  • Native SwiftUI + CarPlay
  • Offline SQLite channel cache
  • On-device audio transcription
03 · THE CLOUD

Cloud catalog

A location-indexed catalog of what's on the air — aviation, weather, marine and ham — provided from the cloud and cached on your phone for the road.

  • Cloud-provided catalog
  • 13k+ curated channels
  • Cached on-device for offline
What you can monitor

Tuned to the world you care about

The cloud catalog and the on-device decoders line up behind the things people actually listen for.

Aviation

Watch the sky & read the datalink
ADS-BACARSVDL Mode 2Air-band voiceCPDLC / ADS-C

Marine

Follow vessels & the VHF that guides them
AIS ship trackingDSC distressNAVTEX406 MHz EPIRBMarine VHFWeather (WX) channels

Amateur Radio

Chase DX, watch propagation, decode the modes
FT8FT4JS8MSK144Q65JT65WSPRCWRTTYPSK31DMRFusionD-STARAPRSSSTV

Weather

Forecasts, warnings & charts off the air
NOAA Weather RadioSAME / EAS alertsHF Weather FaxRadiosondes

Public Safety

Local dispatch on conventional channels
Fire / EMS dispatchLocal governmentPaging (POCSAG/FLEX)Analog FM

Satellites

Know when birds fly over — and follow them
Pass predictionsSky viewLive Doppler tuning

See all 30+ decoders →

In the car

Your whole scanner, on CarPlay

It all runs over wireless CarPlay — glanceable and driver-safe, tuned from the wheel. The Pi does the receiving at home or in the trunk; the dash just shows what's on the air.

Get started

Build your own scanner

Flash the edge software onto a Raspberry Pi, plug in an RTL-SDR, pair your phone by QR — and the airwaves around you light up. The iOS app rounds out a private beta.

Raspberry Pi 4/5 · RTL-SDR (RTL2832U) · iPhone on iOS 16+