FOR RECEIVER OWNERS
Radio Silence is an iPhone app for listening to shortwave through public KiwiSDR receivers, including yours. Your receiver is your hardware, your antenna and your internet connection, shared for free. This page sets out exactly how our app behaves on it, so you can decide for yourself whether to let it in.
HOW WE CONNECT
Each listener's phone connects straight to your receiver and uses one listener slot, just like a browser tab. No server of ours sits in the middle relaying audio, so every limit you set applies to each listener on their own.
YOU WILL SEE OUR NAME
Current versions of the app introduce themselves as Radio Silence when they connect. You will see us by name in your user list, not as an anonymous connection.
YOUR RULES, KEPT
TIME LIMITS AND INACTIVITY TIMEOUTS. When your receiver ends a session, the app stops and tells the listener it was your receiver's rule. It does not jump to a neighboring receiver to keep listening.
PER-ADDRESS LIMITS. Handled the same way. The session ends and the listener is told why.
NO APPS. If your receiver is set to turn away non-browser apps, we take that as final. The app never pretends to be a browser, and it leaves your receiver alone for at least six hours before trying again.
PASSWORDS. The app only sends a password that a listener has entered for a receiver they were given access to.
THE STILL-HERE SIGNAL. The app only tells your receiver someone is still listening when a person actually does something: opens the app, uses its controls or the lock screen controls, or plugs in headphones.
LEFT PLAYING IN A POCKET
After two hours with nobody touching the phone, the app plays a short warning sound, then lets go of your receiver three minutes later. Listeners can change the two hours, or keep one night's session open on purpose, and there is a sleep timer for falling asleep to the radio. Listening through a car counts as someone being there.
SCANNING
The app can scan a band for activity. Scanning changes frequency on its own, which your receiver counts as activity, so the app sets its own limit: a scan stops after 30 minutes with nobody touching the phone.
CHECKING IN ON YOUR RECEIVER
To choose a receiver, the app reads your receiver's public status page, the same one anyone can open, to see whether it is up and how busy it is. Each phone keeps that answer for about 90 seconds before asking again.
WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT RECEPTION
While someone listens, the app notes how noisy each band sounds and whether anything was heard, along with which receiver and roughly when. Listeners share these notes anonymously unless they turn sharing off. The notes never include who was listening, where they are, or what was said. We use them to learn which receivers are quiet on which bands, and we do not publish rankings of receivers. If you would like to see what we have noted for yours, email us.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ALLOW APPS
Your receiver's admin settings let you choose how many listener slots non-browser apps may use. If that number is zero, Radio Silence listeners cannot reach you. Even one slot lets an app listener in while keeping the rest for browsers, and every rule on this page applies to them.
TALK TO US
Questions, a problem with a listener, or something we got wrong? Email radiosilencedev@gmail.com. We would like to hear from you.