Tool
SigDigger
Qt graphical digital signal analyzer by Gonzalo José Carracedo Carballal, built on his Suscan and Sigutils libraries; its user manual names reverse engineering of radio signals with unknown parameters as the main use. It receives from SoapySDR-supported SDRs or plays back recorded I/Q and WAV files, shows spectrum and waterfall views, and lets analysts measure captured stretches in a time window with carrier recovery, transforms and symbol sampling. Inspector tabs run user-tunable PSK, FSK and ASK demodulators with parameter estimation and can forward demodulated samples; it also decodes analog video and previews AM, FM and SSB audio.
- Targets
- Protocol
- Category
- Protocol analysis tools
- Relationship
- Foundation tool
- Sources reviewed
Requirements & limits
- Reviewed at master commit 70f688b (2026-02-11); the README says SigDigger, SuWidgets, Suscan and Sigutils all keep their latest working changes on master. The last stable release is v0.3.0 (2022-07-05, with an x86-64 Linux AppImage and a macOS DMG); a rolling pre-release tagged latest, rebuilt on 2025-04-08, provides a 0.3.0 Linux AppImage and a Windows zip. The bundled user manual is version 0.3.0, dated 2022-06-27, and calls itself a draft.
- The README targets GNU/Linux and macOS: Linux users can run the AppImage (the manual asks for glibc 2.27 or newer), macOS DMGs are made on request, and the README says reproducible Windows builds with all DLL dependencies are not currently possible, leaving Windows users to build from source. Source builds install Sigutils and Suscan (CMake), then SuWidgets and SigDigger (qmake with Qt 5.9+ or Qt 6), in that order; SigDigger.pro also links FFTW through pkg-config. The README also offers the author's blsd script, which builds everything in a local directory.
- Live analysis needs an SDR receiver supported by SoapySDR; without one, recorded RF/IF data can be loaded from WAV or raw complex-float I/Q files. The repository commits no signal recordings. Plugins such as AmateurDSN, APTPlugin, AntSDRPlugin and ZeroMQPlugin live in separate repositories.
- LGPL-3.0 (LICENSE); the README says the spectrum widget is Gqrx's plotter with modifications. The manual describes symbol decision as human-guided, so recovered symbols and any protocol interpretation remain the analyst's work. This review ran nothing and received no signals.
About this entry
The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.
Primary sources
- README.md GitHub · BatchDrake/SigDigger · Revision 70f688b
- doc/SigDigger_User_Manual.pdf GitHub · BatchDrake/SigDigger · Revision 70f688b
- SigDigger.pro GitHub · BatchDrake/SigDigger · Revision 70f688b
- LICENSE GitHub · BatchDrake/SigDigger · Revision 70f688b
- https://github.com/BatchDrake/SigDigger/releases/tag/v0.3.0
- https://github.com/BatchDrake/SigDigger/releases/tag/latest
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