Skip to content

droidstar

M17, DMR, D-STAR, Fusion, P25 and NXDN over reflectors, with software vocoders and no radio

  • Version recorded: 0+git20260913
  • Categories: digital-voice, echolink-repeaters
  • Upstream: https://github.com/nostar/DroidStar
  • Needs first: qml6-module-qtqml, qml6-module-qtqml-models, qml6-module-qtqml-workerscript, qml6-module-qtquick, qml6-module-qtquick-controls, qml6-module-qtquick-dialogs, qml6-module-qtquick-templates, qml6-module-qtquick-window

What it does

DroidStar connects to digital-voice reflectors and networks over the internet and lets you talk and listen through your computer's microphone and speakers: M17, System Fusion (YSF and FCS), DMR (BrandMeister, TGIF and other servers), P25, NXDN, D-STAR (REF, XRF and DCS reflectors) and AllStar nodes as an IAX2 client. The vocoders that turn speech into each mode's bits are compiled in -- Codec2 for M17, an IMBE coder for P25, an AMBE coder derived from mbelib for DMR, Fusion, NXDN and D-STAR -- so it needs no radio and no vocoder dongle. It can also drive an AMBE USB dongle (ThumbDV, DVstick) for the AMBE modes, and an MMDVM modem as a hotspot or, for M17 and DMR, as a stand-alone transceiver. It transmits. Pressing TX sends your voice to the reflector or talkgroup, and repeaters and hotspots linked to it put it on the air; with an MMDVM modem attached it keys that modem's radio directly. A licence applies, and DMR servers need a DMR ID registered to your callsign. Installing it transmits nothing; nothing is sent until you connect and press TX.

Why you would want it

It is the one program here that speaks every common digital-voice network, M17 included, with no radio. D-007 says M17 support is ours to build: AHRL's two M17 programs are gone (DroidStar left it in v26e and mvoice no longer builds on Debian 13), and this gives an M17 reflector client today. It is also the way to try DMR or D-STAR before buying a radio for either. dsdcc decodes some of the same modes off the air from an SDR, receive only; qtel is the EchoLink client.

Before it will work

A microphone and speakers or a headset, and a network connection. Your callsign in its Settings tab; for DMR, a DMR ID registered to that callsign, and the server's hotspot password if your account has one. For an AMBE dongle or an MMDVM modem, the dialout group; upstream's README also asks for ModemManager to be disabled so it leaves the serial port alone.

How it installs

  • git (cmake) — https://github.com/nostar/DroidStar at c6a4c54e7c142814d44e1a887982391e99354e5c — on debian, parrot, kali
  • build dependencies: build-essential, cmake, patch, qt6-base-dev, qt6-base-private-dev, qt6-multimedia-dev, qt6-declarative-dev, qt6-serialport-dev
  • the project's build system has no install rule; the binaries listed below are copied into the prefix instead
  • Built on 2026-10-01 in a rootless debian:13 container the way this block runs it -- the patch, cmake configure, cmake --build --parallel 2 as an unprivileged user with the build_depends above: exit 0, 74 s wall, 666 MiB peak for the largest process, no compiler warnings. The executable is 1.9 MB and links Qt 6 Core, Gui, Network, Multimedia, Quick, QuickControls2 and SerialPort. The build dependencies and the QML modules below came to 427 packages and about 1.1 GB on a bare debian:13 image. The same build on Kali (Qt 6.10.2) took 84 s and 692 MiB.
  • git (cmake) — https://github.com/nostar/DroidStar at c6a4c54e7c142814d44e1a887982391e99354e5c — on ubuntu; version 26.04
  • build dependencies: build-essential, cmake, patch, qt6-base-dev, qt6-base-private-dev, qt6-multimedia-dev, qt6-declarative-dev, qt6-serialport-dev
  • the project's build system has no install rule; the binaries listed below are copied into the prefix instead
  • Ubuntu 26.04 carries Qt 6.10.2. Ubuntu 24.04 and Linux Mint 22.3 carry Qt 6.4.2, below upstream's 6.5 floor, and have no block. Built the same way in an ubuntu:26.04 container on 2026-10-01: 53 s, 679 MiB peak, and it started under a virtual display.

Binaries this produces:

  • DroidStar → droidstar

Known problems

The AMBE software vocoder is not DVSI's. DMR, Fusion, NXDN and D-STAR are AMBE modes; without a hardware dongle DroidStar encodes and decodes them with the mbelib-derived coder in its tree, and how it sounds to other stations against a radio's hardware vocoder has not been measured here. The MD-380 firmware vocoder upstream's build enables is switched off by this build's patch: it runs a radio's firmware, has no licence file and works only on ARM. Its host lists come over plain HTTP. At start it downloads the reflector and host lists and the DMR ID database from www.dudetronics.com over http, unsigned; they are data, not programs, but a network in the middle can change where a host name points. Passwords are stored in clear. The BrandMeister, TGIF and AllStar portal passwords you type go into ~/.config/dudetronics/droidstar.conf as plain text. Upstream says the software is provided as-is with no support. What was measured: built on Debian 13, Kali and Ubuntu 26.04 (Qt 6.8 and 6.10), and started under a virtual display on all three; on Debian 13 the screenshot shows the main tab with "No AMBE hardware connected", "No MMDVM connected" and "Not Connected to network". On that first start the downloaded lists could not be saved, because the container's home had no ~/.config and DroidStar creates only its own subdirectory. Not measured: a connection to any reflector, audio in either direction, an AMBE dongle, an MMDVM modem, arm64, or an install through the engine.

Keeping it current

  • probe: none
  • strategy: rebuild
  • No tags. Read the default branch's head (D-032) at each review; upstream commits in bursts, mostly merged pull requests. Rebuild with the patch and check that both patched lines are still in CMakeLists.txt -- if upstream drops CorePrivate or the MD-380 block itself, drop that hunk.

Where to get help with the software itself

Doug McLain (AD8DP); issues at the URL above, though the README says no support is provided for any build. Licence: GPL-3.0-or-later by its source headers (the repository has no LICENSE file), with the bundled IMBE coder GPL-3.0-or-later, mbelib ISC and Codec2 LGPL-2.1. M17 reflectors and protocol: m17project.org.

Source: catalog/packages/droidstar.yaml