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odr-dabmod

Turns a DAB ensemble into a transmittable OFDM signal

What it does

Takes an ETI stream and produces the DAB OFDM waveform from it, with the digital predistortion and gain control a real transmitter chain needs, and delivers it to a USRP or other SDR, to a file, or over the network.

Why you would want it

It is the modulator half of the free-software DAB transmission chain, and the piece that makes small-scale and community DAB possible without broadcast-grade hardware. Several licensed small-scale DAB operators run exactly this.

Before it will work

An ETI stream from odr-dabmux. Transmitting hardware, and -- this is the part that is not a technical prerequisite -- a licence. Small-scale DAB licensing exists in a number of countries and is the route by which this software is normally used.

How it installs

  • apt: odr-dabmod

Known problems

This is the component that emits. DAB Band III is allocated to broadcasting and radiating into it without authorisation interferes with a licensed service over a wide area, because that is what the standard is designed to do. This project discloses the capability and does not tell you what your jurisdiction permits (D-021). Predistortion tuning against a real amplifier is the hard part of using it well and is not something the defaults accomplish.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

The Open Digital Radio project. Debian declares opendigitalradio.org as the Homepage and that host answered nothing on http or https when checked on 2026-08-28 -- the same finding as the dablin manifest -- so the repository is cited. It is live: head of the default branch is 1c1364c0e0d6, 2026-06-02, read from the branch rather than from GitHub's updated_at (D-032).

Source: catalog/packages/odr-dabmod.yaml