FM – DAB+: my logblog!

World of DX-ing

October 16 2024

Posted on by FMDABDXer

MHz UTC ITU Program + Location Details Remarks km
88.50 1838 POR Rádio Clube de Arganil, Arganil / Serra da Aveleira (coi) PI logged: 84E7 1556km
89.50 1838 POR TSF Rádio Notícias, Lisboa/Monsanto (lis) PI logged: 8343 PS logged: T_S_F_ 1743km

TSF Rádio Notícias, Lisboa/Monsanto
89.50 1838 POR TSF Rádio Notícias, Lisboa/Monsanto

91.40 1838 POR Iris FM, Benavente / Samora Correia – Rua dos Operários Agrícolas (san) PI logged: 801B 1709km
91.60 1838 POR Cidade FM, Lisboa/Monsanto (lis) PI logged: 844C 1743km
92.40 1838 POR Mega Hits, Lisboa/Monsanto (lis) 1743km
87.60 1839 POR RDS, Seixal (set) PI logged: 8040 PS logged: RDS_ 1751km
89.50 1839 POR TSF Rádio Notícias, Lisboa/Monsanto (lis) PI logged: 8343 1743km
93.90 1841 POR RTP Antena 2, Fundão/Serra da Gardunha (cab) PI logged: 8202 PS logged: ANTENA_2 1535km
94.40 1842 POR RTP Antena 2, Lisboa/Monsanto (lis) PI logged: 8202 PS logged: ANTENA_2 1743km
95.20 1842 POR RTP Antena 2, Serra do Arestal (avo) // 93.9 1517km

Map

October 15 2024 – Qt-DAB-6.X update

Posted on by FMDABDXer

Jan Van Katwijk has updated Qt-DAB-6.X.
You can download the new Qt-DAB and the manual on Jan’s Github releases page.
Jan Van Katwijk appreciates your comments and feedback on his Qt-DAB Github issues page.

What’s new in the October 15 2024 update?

  1. The TII threshold setting now has a minimum setting of 3 preventing a TII decoding loop.
  2. The logger has been updated. Once the logger box is ticked the setting is retained and Qt will continue logging the next time you fire it up.
    The continuous log file can be found in C:\Users\XXX\Qt-DAB-files.
  3. You can easily access the Qt-DAB-files by using the button at the top of the Main Widget.
October 15 2024 update

October 11 2024 – Qt-DAB-6.X update

Posted on by FMDABDXer

Today Jan Van Katwijk released an updated version of Qt-DAB-6.X.
You can download the new Qt-DAB and the updated manual on Jan’s Github releases page.
Jan Van Katwijk appreciates your comments and feedback on his Qt-DAB Github issues page.

What’s new in today’s update?
In the Configuration and control widget a new spinbox can be found in which the TII decoding threshold can be set. The lower the value the more false positive TII codes will be generated. The default setting is 4.

I also noticed when using the updated Qt-DAB and a RTL SDR V4 dongle and setting the TII spinbox to 0, Qt completely crashed. The only way to get it working again was unplugging the RTL SDR, restarting Qt-DAB with another device and then setting the threshold to a higher value.
After changing the device back to RTL SDR the problem was solved.
In the October 12 update the minimum setting is 3, preventing the user to start a TII decoding loop.

New TII spinbox

In the Configuration and control widget the user can now set the audio handler i.e. PORTAUDIO or QT_AUDIO.
The change will be effective after a Qt-DAB restart.
With QT_AUDIO there’s a volume slider on the right hand side of the Main widget.

Qt_DAB update with new audio handler

September 23 2024 – Qt-DAB-6.X update

Posted on by FMDABDXer

In the September 18 Qt-DAB update unidentified TII codes were shown, but not logged.
Today Jan Van Katwijk updated Qt-DAB and codes not matching with the database entries are now saved in the tii-files.txt log which can be found in the
C:\Users\XXX\Qt-DAB-files folder.
(Linux: the file is in the tmp directory in the subdirectory Qt_DAB-files.)
Data in this file are NOT deleted after a session.
The tii-files.txt file will get bigger and bigger and the user will have to manually delete it if it becomes too large.
Mind you TII codes are only logged in the DX mode.

You can download the update Qt-DAB on Jan’s Github releases page.
Jan Van Katwijk appreciates your comments and feedback on his Qt-DAB Github issues page.

Qt-DAB unid TII codes

September 22 2024 – AbracaDABra 2.5.92 (RC)

Posted on by FMDABDXer

A few days ago Petr Kopecký released AbracaDABra 2.5.92 (RC) with some new features.
I’ve been using AbracaDABra for quite a while mainly for casual listening while doing other stuff on my computer.
AbracaDABra is easy to use and in my view not really a DAB DX tool like QIRX or Qt-DAB.
But this has changed with version 2.5.90 and up!
You can download AbracaDABra from Petr’s Github release page.
AbracaDABra is great with a RTL SDR stick. You can also use Airspy, Soapy SDR or RTL_tcp.

What’s new in 2.5.92?
° Audio can be (un)muted via the tray icon.
° Ensemble info can be exported in a .csv file.

Starting with 2.5.90 (beta) great features like a map and TII decoding have been added.

  • Via the settings (1) (3 dots) and the TII tab you can add your location (3) and import data from the fmlist. Do check the ‘Show spectrum plot’. Activate the map and spectrum plot (2) via the three dots and TII decoder.
  • At the top left of the map (4) all TII info can be seen and sorted. Clicking a line will highlight this code on the map (6) and vice versa! Highlighting a TII at the top left or on the map will activate an info box (7) at the bottom right of the map. Unknown TII codes are shown too.
  • An info box at the top right (5) of the map shows Ensemble, ECC, EID and the channel.

MIND YOU: the TII and map features only work in expert mode (Settings–>Others).

AbracaDABra 2.5.92 (RC)