@NicholasFasching – Hack Club Scrapbook

Sun, Sep 1

I just released v0.6.0-beta.0 of RTL-SDR Radio! First off, this is my last scrapbook of Arcade, and thank you to all the reviewers! I’ve gone all the way from v0.1.0 to now v0.6.0 in just the past ~1.5 months thanks to Arcade! Anyways, this release is mostly some UI/UX improvements. Mainly the interface is now more like a music player with a sidebar for selecting different functions and a bottom bar to see the status of your SDR. I also added a dropdown (or in my case, I guess a “drop up”?) that lets you choose from any SDR on your system (rather than randomly like before). GitHub Release: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio/releases/tag/v0.6.0-beta.0 GitHub: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio

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Mon, Aug 26

I just released v0.5.1 of RTL-SDR Radio which brings Windows support to my app! I also optimized the build process for reliability and speed. GitHub: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio GitHub Release: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio/releases/tag/v0.5.1

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Sun, Aug 25

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Thu, Aug 22

Just released v0.5.0 of RTL-SDR Radio with some major updates! After the past 2 weeks, this is the first stable version that has support for decoding messages sent by airplanes! While I have made a lot of improvements to the ADS-B (airplane messages) decoding, this release adds some other small, but important improvements. I have added support for dark/light mode based on your OS settings and some other UI tweaks. When playing Radio, it now displays in your OS media controls, and you can pause/play from there. I have also added a fun statistic to show how long you have been listening to radio, and migrated to Vite for some performance and support improvements. For some more details, take a look at the release notes on GitHub. GitHub Repo: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio GitHub Release: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio/releases/tag/v0.5.0

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Sun, Aug 18

I made a free and public API to get registration information about aircraft from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). I call it “arla”, which stands for “Aircraft Registration Lookup API”. I use Supabase for the database and Vercel/Next.js for the website/API. I also use GitHub Actions for running the daily update script to fetch registration information from the FAA. The API is very small, but I made a (in my opinion) pretty awesome looking website/documentation page for it. The documentation page is designed to be easy to understand, with buttons for each API endpoint to send a test API request. I also have a light and dark mode theme for the entire website. GitHub: github.com/njfdev/Aircraft-Registration-Lookup-API Website: arla.njf.dev

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Tue, Aug 13

I am so excited to announce this release!!! I have just released v0.5.0-beta.1 of RTL-SDR Radio. This is a big release because it is the first time an entirely new set of SDR capabilities (rather than just FM/AM radio) has been added. You can now decode messages from ✈️ airplanes! I have spent the past week making an implementation for a Mode S decoder (heavily inspired by dump1090) and a completely custom ADS-B decoder (using information from the 1090MHz Riddle). Just so you know, ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast) sends information about an airplane, and Mode S is like a protocol that ADS-B sends messages on. With this new decoding capability, RTL-SDR Radio can display the location and heading of planes on a map! You can also see a lot of other information about the planes, such as callsign, ICAO address, speed, vertical speed, etc. Because it is using your SDR (Software Defined Radio), this does not rely on an internet connection (other than for displaying the map). It is very fun to see the aircraft appear, and search up their callsign to see where they are coming from and their destination. I have also refactored a good portion of code for better code structure and readability. This is a pretty big feature, which also means there is still a lot to work on. For this reason, I am only releasing as a beta for now. GitHub: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio Link to Release: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio/releases/tag/v0.5.0-beta.1

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Tue, Aug 6

Just released the biggest update to RTL-SDR Radio yet with v0.4.0! I have spent the past 2 weeks making my own RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data System) decoder in Rust based on the RDS 1998 spec and the RBDS 2011 spec. Now, when listen to FM Radio, you can see the RadioText (usually song title and artist) and genre of the station. There is also now an “Advanced Info” tab that shows all the other RBDS data that my implementation decodes. I also have implemented some basic error correction to improve signal reception. Here are some other notable features: • I added an updater which will check for updates on start up and can install them for you • All dependencies are now bundled within the app, so you can just run it without installing anything else • Internally, I have upgraded from Tauri V1 to Tauri V2 Beta • The last radio station you listen to will now be saved • Support for AM radio (this was already submitted in a scrapbook for a beta version of this release) • Some other fixes and improvements GitHub: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio Link to v0.4.0: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio/releases/tag/v0.4.0 Here is a video demoing the new RBDS decoding capabilities!

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Tue, Jul 30

I just released v0.4.0-beta.1 of RTL-SDR Radio! This update includes added support for AM radio stations and displaying the “Program Type” of FM radio stations. With this update, I spent about a week learning the RBDS/RDS (Radio Data System) and implementing the logic for decoding the data all by hand in Rust. This involves a multi-step process of demodulating the FM signal, then demodulating the AM sub-carrier, then decoding the Manchester encoded signal, then determining the “offset word”, and finally decoding the data blocks. All to say that this is a pretty complicated process and there is much more data to decode than just the “Program Type”, so I am releasing it only as a beta for now. GitHub: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio Release Link: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio/releases/tag/v0.4.0-beta.1 Here is a short little demo video (without sound):

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Tue, Jul 23

My “RTL-SDR Radio” app just got some big improvements in version 0.3! You can now listen to any FM Radio station of your choosing, and save any of your stations to listen back to later. You can now favorite stations and sort them in a list. My favorite feature is being able to load and automatically start playing a station with a click of a button. Also, the GitHub releases should now be useable due to some improvement in the GitHub Actions and build scripts. GitHub: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio Here is a demo video (without sound):

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Wed, Jul 17

Hello everyone! I created a GUI interface for the nrsc5 command line tool to listen to HD Radio stations with your RTL-SDR! I was having lots of issues with building the app with GitHub Actions, so if you want to try it out, you will need to install from source following the instructions on my GitHub. GitHub Repo: github.com/njfdev/rtlsdr-radio Here is a Demo video. Sound was not captured, but I promise I could hear music!

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Sun, Jul 14

I have redesigned the image cards for my astronomy photos on my website. I have made it look much nicer than before, and added a little hover effect for the cherry on top. You can now click on the images to get a larger, higher-quality version of the image, alongside some more details underneath. I have also added some optimizations for users on smaller screens! Website: astronomy.njf.dev GitHub: github.com/njfdev/astronomy-njf-dev

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Fri, Jul 12

I added a new filters section to my astrophotography website to help you find specific types of photos. You can filter for certain object types (nebulae, galaxies, etc.) and for certain catalogs (Messier, IC, NGC, etc.). You can also now sort (by date or alphabetically) and select a date range to find photos. I also cleaned up some sizing issues for smaller screens and added a privacy-friendly analytics tool (Umami). Website: astronomy.njf.dev GitHub: github.com/njfdev/astronomy-njf-dev/tree/main

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Thu, Jul 11

I made a custom POSIX-compliant shell in Rust! It supports the basic commands echo, exit, pwd, cd, and type. It also can run any executable found in your $PATH. github.com/njfdev/custom-rust-shell

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Wed, Jul 10

I made my own simple HTTP server in rust that supports some important parts of the HTTP standard and supports gzip encoding. github.com/njfdev/custom-rust-http-server

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