What are your favorite radio apps? Tell us and you might win a prize!

32 Replies

Each year, I spend time going updating our curated list of amateur and shortwave radio apps.

I do my best to keep this list of applications up-to-date and am always on the lookout for new ones. Thing is, new apps are developed every day–certainly a moving target for this editor.

This is where you can help…

Please comment on this post with your favorite radio-related iOS, Android, and Windows Phone applications. Please link to the app and/or mention what operating system you use. Of course, please tell us what you love about your choice apps.

A prize! Woot!

Next Friday (August 23, 2019) I’ll pick one random comment from this post and send the lucky reader a copy of Pirate Radio: The incredible saga of America’s underground, illegal broadcasters by Andrew Yoder. This classic pirate radio history book even includes an audio CD with clips from famous (and infamous!) pirate radio stations.

Many thanks to our friends at Universal Radio who supplied this to us as a gift for our readers.

What apps supplement your radio fun?  Please comment!

Congratulations to Peter Atkinson who won the CC Buds Solo and April who won the Joe Carr Loop antenna book in our last giveaways!

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32 thoughts on “What are your favorite radio apps? Tell us and you might win a prize!”

  2. Giuseppe Morlè

    Ciao to all,
    I lived from adolescence on the island of Ponza, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy, and I started as a child listening to my grandmother’s radio, a Telefunken Domino, which I had near my bed …
    Over time I bought a Grundig Satellit 2000 which at the time was a top receiver and I remember the WOR transmissions with Glenn Hauser and took notes of the frequencies to be used in the silence of my island.
    Great memories of a past time but beautiful and the Radio was always with me … we lived on a small island and the news of the world I listened to them with a thread of 20 m. hanging from the ceiling of the house.
    Thanks to Glenn and his program and to the happiness of that time.
    ’73 by Giuseppe iz0gzw.
     

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  4. Roger Fitzharris

    My favorite radio-related apps for my Android device are: 1 Radio News (Pro Version) and the Scanner Radio App (Pro Version). I’ve had both apps for more than three years now, and both are outstanding.
    1 Radio News has become the de facto extension of my Tecsun PL-880 for global news on demand, as well as some live news feeds from the world’s top broadcasters.
    With the Scanner Radio App, you can listen to “live” audio from “scanned frequencies” from around the world that are being relayed to your smartphone or tablet by Broadcastify.com (which includes: Wunderground.com, RailRoadRadio.net, etc). The result is live audio from: police/fire scanners, marine, rail, and air (scanned) frequencies, amateur radio repeaters, weather radios, etc. Truly amazing – allows you to sample the world above 30 MHz without having to go through the process of selecting a scanner.

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  5. Mike Thomas

    I use the repeater book as I travel for local repeater information and I also use the scanner 5-0 app when not near my base unit.

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  6. Dale Moore

    I use several apps for shortwave and planespotting (scanner); here are some I use the most, all iOS:

    I use short-wave.info for schedules, and it has good search and sort functionality. I also use SWBC Schedules, but that is already on the list. I will note that app is provided by blackcatsystems.com, which has a number of other tools on both platforms for radio folks.

    For planespotting I don’t use radio apps specifically, but there three that add fun and functionality to the activity. For getting information on airports, like location and frequencies, there is airnav.com and funplacestofly.com, where you would select “Airports”. I also have fun with registry.faa.gov, which gives you information on an aircraft using the tail number such as manufacturer, model, year certified and ownership. I use it to ID unfamiliar models, and to see if I can find the owner of a biz jet.

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  7. Marcus Keulertz

    I use the Radio Garden App and in addition the Jazz Radio App to satisfy my passion for Jazz music.Apart from that I use several other Music Apps. I’m focused on talk radio stations mainly in english and spanish language. The rest is just for entertainment during work and leisure time.

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  8. Art

    On ios I use tuneIn for broadcast stations. On mac OS I use short-wave.info for broadcast stations.
    For Ham related decoding etc., Ill use the fldigi suite of software, Macdoppler for satellite, js8call, wsjtx for wspr, multiscan( for as long that will last) and sometimes audacity for recording.

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  9. EAST TROY DON

    For Android, best are SHORTWAVE SCHEDULES PREMIUM and (now that they’ve fixed the Android bugaboo) SKYWAVE SCHEDULES. Both are current, reliable and very user friendly. Both also disclose target regions and multiple filtering parameters. Shortwave schedules PREMIUM has wonderful propagation maps. No ads on either app. Used in conjunction, DX ID’ing is greatly enhances.

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  11. ShortwaveGuy

    Easy! Shortwave Schedules by Stephen Cooper and DroidSSTV by Wolphi! Between these 2 apps, you can look at schedules, see what’s on now, log what you hear, and decide any SSTV!

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  14. Robert W McLeod

    Hi! Another great survey.

    I use Scanner Radio most of the time and on my walks Radio.com for listening to the news. Thanks,
    73
    Bob

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  16. Bill (WD9EQD)

    My favorite radio apps for the Android Phone/Tablet:

    Skywave Schedules V2.1.5 – This has recently been updated and
    now includes links to webSDR receivers. Just bring up a frequency,
    Select Listen and it will tune a webSDSR receiver to that frequency and
    you can start listening to the station. You can have it select a “Random Receiver”
    or select one from the list. What’s interesting is that you can select the mode and
    bandwidth. I recently used it to tune in the local FLDigi ham radio net by
    entering frequency and USB. Great for when I’m not home and don’t have a
    radio with me.

    DVSwitch Mobile 1.51 – This an IAXRPT app that allows me to use my Allstar
    Node when I’m away from the house.

    EchoLink – Great for connecting to various repeaters around the country.

    Peanut 1.57 by PA7LIM – Can connect to various ham radio “Rooms” around the
    world as well as DMR reflectors.

    Tune-In Radio – Great for listening to radio stations all over the world.
    I have favorites set up for various stations I listen to a lot. Let’s me listen to my
    college football and basketball games plus many other sports. Also have some
    favorites set up for shortwave stations.

    CustomRadioPlayer – This is a streaming app. I like it and use it more often than
    Tune-In-Radio. There are NO stations included. You have to create a station by
    entering the www address of the stream. Some stations make this easy by clearly
    showing the stream address. Other times, I have to search and hunt for the stream
    address. I have about twenty stations set up including Radio Swiss Jazz, WCBQ,
    WWCR, WRMI and many FM stations around the US. Since this app goes directly
    to the stream, it responds very quickly – usually starts streaming within 2-3 seconds.
    A lot faster than Tune-In, plus no audio pre-commercials. It also has sleep timer
    feature, so I usually set it for an hour and then fall asleep to a station.

    RepeaterBook – Great for when traveling to find the local repeaters.

    DroidPSK – PSK-31 program.

    Robot35 – Slow Scan TV program.

    AndFlmsg – Combination of FLdigi and FLmsg for the Andriod.

    Adobe Reader – Use it for reading PDF’s of Radio Magazines both old and new ones. For example:

    Paid Subscription to The Spectrum Monitor – monthly magazine with many of the same
    writers/editors as the old Monitoring Time.
    Web Address: https://www.thespectrummonitor.com/

    K9YA Telegraph – A free monthly newsletter about ham radio.
    Web Address: http://www.k9ya.org/

    73
    Bill
    WD9EQD

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  18. W3OKW /Frank

    I’m an iOS guy, most used hamradio app, No brainer! “QRZ”, gets accessed usually with every contact. “73 HamLog” is a favorite logger, “APRS.fi” for APRS tracking, “Ham Utility” is a great reference and “VNC Viewer” controls my remote radio both within the house and over the Internet world-wide with the RigPi.

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  19. Richard Dalton

    Skywave Schedules is what I use lately. Has come along way in the last year. Now has links to remote SDR receivers so you can listen via the app if necessary. Available in the Google app store. Version coming for IOS.

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  22. joseph c majewski

    I don’t know if this is a valid comment for the purpose of this ‘contest’, but I do not use any ‘apps’, and don’t really know what they are or certainly don’t know how to use them. I am stuck in the analog past. I do sometimes listen to music on ‘youtube’, but I don’t know if that is considered an app.

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