Apple ios & SDR

[N4IFE]

Until a year or two ago Apple severely limited ios USB connectivity to external USB memory devices with only pictures. Now, any USB device including thumb drives, portable SSDs, etc. can be used to access any type of file. Is there software available so an SDR (e.g. RTL-SDR) can be used directly with an iPad? I especially want to be able to see the entire VHF/UHF bands when mobile so I can see where there is activity. It appears to me iPads have more than sufficient horsepower, especially recent ones with M1 & A15 CPUs, to handle an SDR.

 

[Reconrider]

Not possible on Apple devices - maybe with a jailbreak, but to my knowledge, you can't install the needed driver for the device to work. Apple uses a stripper debian(I believe that's the OS they base the iOS on).

Find out how to do that, and it's possible it'll work, but you'd still need a program to load to use the sdr.

Just pickup a raspberry pi, a mini touch screen, or use vnc to connect. Put it in a backpack and have the antenna sticking straight up and there you go

 

[vagrant]

1. You will not be able to see, I presume via a waterfall, the entire VHF band, nor the entire UHF band even when looking individually at each band. I could be wrong, but I am not aware of an SDR that covers that much bandwidth.

2. iOS accessing different files is not the same as running an app with an SDR dongle directly connected to the iOS device.

I also wish I could do what you want using an iPad, but no go. Instead I use a Motorola Android phone and or a Microsoft Surface Go 2 tablet with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. In particular I use an SDRPlay RSP2 with the Surface Go. It will run SDRUno even when set to show a 10 MHz spread. I do not often need to see that much of a spread, but it definitely helps when I need to track stuff down. I use a regular RTL-SDR dongle with the Android phone. In fact, I purchased that phone just to run stuff that will never run on iOS.

 

[GlynH]

I feel your pain...of a fashion.

In my case however I don't want to plug in a device to my iPhone/iPad as I already have an AirSpy plugged into a Pi4 running SpyServer to which I can quite happily connect via my PC running SDR# and listen to free from dongles, cables etc. all over the house and I suspect anywhere in the world over the Internet although I haven't tried that yet.

I would however like to connect to my existing setup via my iPhone/iPad but don't see a way of doing this?

Is there an iOS-friendly app capable of connecting to SpyServer so I can at least listen to if not observe the displays and control the radio?

I see references of Android apps going back to 2018 and earlier that support RTL_TCP bit that consumes a lot of bandwidth but nothing much 4 years later that seems to be iOS/SpyServer specific.

Unless someone can tell me different of course...

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[Dirk_SDR]

I feel your pain...of a fashion.

In my case however I don't want to plug in a device to my iPhone/iPad as I already have an AirSpy plugged into a Pi4 running SpyServer to which I can quite happily connect via my PC running SDR# and listen to free from dongles, cables etc. all over the house and I suspect anywhere in the world over the Internet although I haven't tried that yet.

I would however like to connect to my existing setup via my iPhone/iPad but don't see a way of doing this?

Is there an iOS-friendly app capable of connecting to SpyServer so I can at least listen to if not observe the displays and control the radio?

I see references of Android apps going back to 2018 and earlier that support RTL_TCP bit that consumes a lot of bandwidth but nothing much 4 years later that seems to be iOS/SpyServer specific.

Unless someone can tell me different of course...

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

There was an iOS app in 2018 to connect to an SDR server:

New RTL-SDR Receiver App for iOS Released

A new RTL-SDR compatible app for Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad) has recently been released on the Apple App store. The app is called 'SDR Receiver', costs US$9.99, and is used together with an RTL-SDR (or Airspy HF+) server running on a separate networked device such as a Raspberry Pi or PC...

www.rtl-sdr.com

I don't know whether the app still exists.

 

[GlynH]

There was an iOS app in 2018 to connect to an SDR server:

New RTL-SDR Receiver App for iOS Released

A new RTL-SDR compatible app for Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad) has recently been released on the Apple App store. The app is called 'SDR Receiver', costs US$9.99, and is used together with an RTL-SDR (or Airspy HF+) server running on a separate networked device such as a Raspberry Pi or PC...

www.rtl-sdr.com

I don't know whether the app still exists.

Thanks for the quick reply Dirk.

Yeah that was one of the 3 references to SDR and iOS I looked at this morning. As I read it seems to be for an RTL-SDR or Airspy HF+ only whereas I am using an Airspy Mini & R2 on my network so not sure whether it would work or not?

Guess it might as even the HF+ would probably use Spyserver so might just take a gamble and splash the £8.99 because if it does work it will be worth it to me but it would have been ideal if the author could have made it clearer one way or the other.

The other 2 references to SDR & iOS were on the same website;

RTL-TCP SDR

Magic SDR

I was hoping over the years that some entrepreneur might release a WiNRADiO iOS Client but I'm glad I didn't hold my breath for that!

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[GlynH]

There is a great looking official FlexRadio app called SmartSDR which makes me wish I had spent my money going down the FlexRadio road instead of WiNRADiO...

I often wonder why Companies whose products are fairly hi-tech such as radio and weather stations to quote just a couple of examples don't seem to have more direct support from the manufacturers who have to author software to drive the things in the first place!

-=Glyn=-

 

[Dirk_SDR]

The problem isn't the Airspy or RTL-SDR receiver but the TCP data stream, that must be compatible with the RTL_SDR utility.

 

[jazzboypro]

There is a great looking official FlexRadio app called SmartSDR which makes me wish I had spent my money going down the FlexRadio road instead of WiNRADiO...

I often wonder why Companies whose products are fairly hi-tech such as radio and weather stations to quote just a couple of examples don't seem to have more direct support from the manufacturers who have to author software to drive the things in the first place!

-=Glyn=-

Can't really compare the Flexradio and Winradio they are to very different beast

 

[Dirk_SDR]

Anyone tried these iOS apps meanwhile?

 

[N2NVY]

Anyone tried these iOS apps meanwhile?

I just set up an "unofficial" Facebook users group for SDR-Control for Mac/iOS. I've seen a good number of general questions on the web but no central place for users to interact. Feel free to join other users of the software. Search Facebook for SDR Control for Mac / iOS Users Group