45 decoders, one packet stream
What WaveShark decodes
Every scanner inside the sampled span runs at once, so these are not modes you switch between. Point the receiver at a band and whichever of them live there are already running.
1090 MHz
ADS-B and Mode S
Aircraft on a map with callsign, altitude, speed, track and position, read off the 1090 MHz downlink alongside everything else in the span.
What it gives you →978 MHz
UAT at 978 MHz
The light aircraft that never appear on 1090, and the ground stations uplinking weather and traffic to them.
What it gives you →129-137 MHz
ACARS
The text messages crews and airlines send each other over VHF: position reports, fuel figures, technical faults and free text.
What it gives you →136.7-137 MHz
VDL Mode 2
The datalink most European traffic now uses, carrying the same airline messages as ACARS at eight times the rate.
What it gives you →1545-1555 MHz
Inmarsat Aero
The satellite half of airline datalink: the same messages as ACARS, sent where there is no VHF ground station to hear.
What it gives you →L band
Inmarsat STD-C
EGC and SafetyNET broadcasts to shipping: navigation warnings, weather, piracy reports and search and rescue calls.
What it gives you →Marine VHF
AIS
Vessel positions and identity on the same map as the aircraft, off the two AIS channels at once.
What it gives you →406 MHz
COSPAS-SARSAT beacons
Distress beacon identities and the position they encode, drawn on the map the moment one transmits.
What it gives you →144.800 / 144.390 / 144.640 MHz
APRS
Packet stations, digipeaters, weather stations and vehicle trackers, with a KISS TNC so your own software can use the same radio.
What it gives you →Wherever pagers are used
POCSAG paging
Pager messages in clear at 512, 1200 and 2400 bit/s, deduplicated because a paging network sends every page twice.
What it gives you →VHF and UHF paging
FLEX paging
The faster paging standard, at 1600 and 3200 baud in two and four level, read into the same message list as POCSAG.
What it gives you →VHF and UHF fire and ambulance
Two-tone paging
The pair of tones that opens a fire or ambulance pager, named from an operator list so a call reads as a station rather than two frequencies.
What it gives you →Analogue VHF and UHF
MDC-1200
The burst a Motorola radio sends when its key goes down, naming the unit, so an analogue channel gains who as well as what.
What it gives you →162.400-162.550 MHz
EAS and SAME
Alert headers off the seven NOAA Weather Radio channels: the event, the counties it covers and how long it lasts.
What it gives you →HF and VHF
RTTY
Baudot teleprinter text from 45.45 to 200 baud, either way up, read into the message view as it arrives.
What it gives you →HF, VHF and UHF
Morse
A CW channel read as text at whatever speed it was sent, including the beacons that identify a repeater or a transmitter site.
What it gives you →136-174 / 400-470 MHz
DMR
Who called whom on which talkgroup, on both time slots, with speech through a source build carrying the ambe feature.
What it gives you →136-174 / 400-470 / 700-800 MHz
P25 phase 1
The talkgroup, the radio id and the key a call is under, off the C4FM frames North American public safety runs on.
What it gives you →12.5 and 6.25 kHz channels
NXDN
The system number, who called whom, whether the call is enciphered, and the speech where it is not.
What it gives you →390-400 MHz
TETRA
The network, its cells and who is called, clear calls heard as speech, and a wgpu key search on the ciphers in a source build carrying the tea feature.
What it gives you →Amateur VHF and UHF
M17
The open digital voice mode, decoded in full: callsigns, packet messages and Codec 2 speech, with nothing patent encumbered in the way.
What it gives you →900 / 1800 MHz
GSM
A cell’s identity off its synchronisation burst, the system information it broadcasts, and who a page is calling.
What it gives you →700 MHz to 2.7 GHz
LTE cells
Every LTE cell on every carrier in the span: its physical id, network, tracking area, band, bandwidth and level, and the neighbouring carriers it points phones at.
What it gives you →433 / 868 / 915 MHz
LoRa mesh
Meshtastic text under the public keys, MeshCore adverts, and LoRaWAN join requests with the addresses they allocate.
What it gives you →868.95 MHz
Wireless M-Bus
The heat, water, gas and electricity meters transmitting around you: manufacturer, meter number, version and type.
What it gives you →915 MHz
Itron ERT meters
North American utility meters: the consumption number, the meter id and the type, in SCM, SCM+ and IDM formats.
What it gives you →868 / 908 MHz
Z-Wave
Door locks, sensors and plugs at 9.6, 40 and 100 kbit/s, on the European and North American channels.
What it gives you →433 / 868 / 915 MHz
ISM sensors and remotes
About 130 device descriptions from the rtl_433 family: weather stations, thermometers, door contacts, gate remotes, security sensors and shelf labels.
What it gives you →315 / 433.92 MHz
TPMS
Tyre pressure sensors as cars pass: the sensor id, the pressure, the temperature and whether the wheel is turning.
What it gives you →2.4 GHz advertising channels
Bluetooth LE
Advertising packets on all three primary channels, Bluetooth 5 Long Range included, with Open Drone ID read where it is carried.
What it gives you →2.4 GHz
Wi-Fi
802.11a/g/b and single-stream n: network names, the addresses talking, the rate each frame arrived at and whether an address is randomised.
What it gives you →2.4 GHz channels 11-26
Zigbee, Thread and Matter
The 802.15.4 layer under all three stacks: the addresses talking, the networks they belong to and the channel each sits on.
What it gives you →2.4 GHz
Drone Remote ID
A drone’s serial, position, height and operator location, from the Remote ID broadcast it is required to send, and the home point from a DJI airframe.
What it gives you →2.4 GHz / 868 / 915 MHz
RC control links
Where the sticks are on every model control link in earshot: a bar per channel in microseconds, with the frame rate and whether the handset is asking to arm.
What it gives you →144.500 MHz and HF
SSTV
Pictures drawn line by line as they arrive, in Martin 1 and 2, Scottie 1, 2 and DX, and Robot 36 and 72, saved to disc when the transmission ends.
What it gives you →137.1 / 137.9125 / 137.62 MHz
NOAA APT
Analogue weather satellite pictures from the NOAA birds, drawn as the pass comes over, with the pass itself planned in the satellites view.
What it gives you →137 MHz
Meteor-M LRPT
The Russian digital weather satellite: three MSU-MR channels drawn a strip of eight rows at a time as the pass comes over.
What it gives you →Shortwave
HF weather fax
Surface pressure charts and ice maps sent to shipping on shortwave, drawn on the video pane as they come in.
What it gives you →400-406 MHz
Radiosondes
Weather balloons on the map with serial, height and climb rate, in eight families, with the channel following the transmitter as it drifts.
What it gives you →UHF
DVB-T television
A multiplex read from its carriers down to its transport stream, with the service you pick playing in the window at full frame rate and its sound in step.
What it gives you →Ku band through an LNB
DVB-S2 satellite television
A satellite transponder read off a dish and LNB, QPSK to 32APSK with the symbol rate measured, down to the services on it and the picture and sound of the one you pick.
What it gives you →Band III
DAB
An ensemble and the stations in it, with their programme types and bit rates, and the one you pick playing, DAB or DAB+.
What it gives you →Shortwave and medium wave
DRM
The services in a DRM multiplex, their languages and their labels, off a shortwave or medium wave transmission.
What it gives you →1.2 / 2.4 / 5.8 GHz
Analogue video and FPV
A camera’s picture straight off the span, PAL or NTSC in colour, with its audio subcarrier heard alongside and the carrier named from its line rate.
What it gives you →5.8 GHz, 20 MHz channels
Walksnail Avatar
A Walksnail Avatar digital video link off the air: its channel, frame rate, frame counter, modulation, MER and antenna balance, and the goggles’ own uplink bursts.
What it gives you →
Coverage is the thin part on ISM: rtl_433 has roughly 250 device decoders and WaveShark has about 130, checked field for field against it. The bands say what lives where, and the use cases are the jobs these get used for.
Plug in a radio and press play.
It opens on the dashboard, and the dial starts at 433.92 MHz where the devices it decodes are.
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