Listen to FM radio with RDS in OnAir

The simplest signal to start with, and a good test of your antenna.

What you need#

Any radio that tunes 87.5 to 108 MHz (an RTL-SDR is plenty) and a wire or telescopic antenna.

Choose FM in the mode list (group Broadcast radio).
Open the Scan tab and run the FM band scan. The scan lists the stations it finds; since 0.2.6 it covers the band from 87.0 MHz or a custom from / to range. A full RDS option waits for the whole station name, radio text and PI before it moves on.
Press Start, then choose a station from the Stations list, or type a frequency (87.5 to 108 MHz) in the box.
Open the Radio tab. The Stereo and RDS lamps show what the receiver has locked; the table shows the sound (stereo or mono), the pilot level and the RDS state with the percentage of good RDS blocks.
Read the RDS data: station name, radio text, programme type and traffic flags. The plots show the multiplex (pilot, L-R and RDS) and the RDS symbols.
(0.2.6) Press Save station to put the frequency and the live RDS name in your own list of Saved stations; click one later to tune to it. The list is separate from the band scan.

On a weak station a Mono switch (0.2.6) gives cleaner sound than a noisy stereo decode.
With a live radio, FM no longer jumps to a stronger station nearby (fixed in 0.2.3).
RDS-TMC traffic messages are decoded since 0.2.4.