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Open Signal
OPXRelease Notes

Release notes — what changed, and when

Every published version of Open Signal, newest first. If your copy is older than the version at the top, the in-app update notice will offer you the new one — or download it again and install over the top.

Current — 0.34.1published September 2026

0.34.1

Latest

The current build on the download page.

Fixed

  • Copy and paste of pictures now works on Linux. — Copying a received picture put only a file reference on the clipboard, which Windows accepts but Linux desktops do not offer to anything expecting a picture — so a copy appeared to do nothing at all. The picture itself now goes on the clipboard as well, and pasting recognises the formats Linux screenshot tools and browsers actually use. If a paste still finds nothing, the status line names what the clipboard was offering.

0.33.0

Rig control, from operator feedback — all three fixes came from operators.

New

  • Test PTT. — A button in Settings keys the radio for two seconds using the settings on screen — before you save them — and says what happened at each step: the mode it set, whether the radio keyed, whether it released again. If it will not key, this says why.
  • Save your radios and switch between them. — Save each rig under a name in Settings → Your radios, then swap between them from the chips at the top of the Transmit screen. Each radio remembers its own sound card in and out, serial port, PTT method, driver, CI-V address, baud rate, transmit mode and drive level, so switching moves the whole station in one click instead of retyping six settings. Switching restarts the station on the other radio; it is refused while you are transmitting.
  • QSL overlays. — Lay a card over the pictures you send, in the spirit of MMSSTV and EasyPal. Pick a design from the Transmit screen, or build your own: add lines of text, drag them into place on a live preview of your own picture, and set size, colour and alignment. Text fills itself in as each picture goes out — {CALL}, {GRID}, {THEIRCALL}, {DATE}, {TIME}, {MODE}, {FREQ} and the rest, the same tokens the quick-text macros use. You can add a PNG frame or club logo too. Three designs are there to start with; the small callsign stamp is unchanged and still works on its own.

Fixed

  • Your radio is put into a data mode before transmitting, so it actually sends audio. — If your rig has a USB socket, plain FM or USB takes its audio from the microphone — so the app keyed the radio and put a silent carrier on the air, and the only way round it was to switch to FM-D by hand, hold the transmit button yourself, and switch back afterwards. Choose your radio's data mode under Settings → Transmit mode and the app now does that switch for you, putting your mode back when the transmission ends. Set it to “Leave the rig alone” to keep doing it by hand.
  • The CI-V address box now lists the rigs by name. — It always defaulted to 94, which is the IC-7300's address — an IC-9700 is A2, so a 9700 that looked correctly set up would never key and never say why. Pick your radio from the list, or type any address as before.
  • The log now tells you when the radio cannot be keyed. — Several settings combinations left the app quietly unable to key with nothing said anywhere: no serial port chosen, a port another program already has open, or VOX selected with a rig driver. Each one now explains itself.

0.32.1

New

  • Send a video clip. — There is a “Video…” button next to “Picture…” in the compose bar. The clip goes to cloud storage and only its link crosses the air, so sending one costs about five seconds of airtime however long it is. MP4, WebM, M4V and MOV, up to 64 MB — roughly a minute or two of 720p.
  • Clips you receive download on their own and appear under Pictures → Videos. Click one to play it in your usual video player, or “Watch in browser” to open it as a web page. That link works for anyone you send it to, whether or not they have Open Signal.
  • A station with no internet still sees the link as an ordinary text message. Unlike a picture there is no over-the-air fallback — a clip is far too large to send over the radio itself.

Fixed

  • Changing a setting no longer signs you out. — Saving the Settings window quietly threw away your sign-in, so the next launch asked for an emailed code again — every time you touched a setting. Your sign-in now survives.
  • You are told when there is a new version. — The check only ran a few minutes after startup, so anyone who opened the station briefly was never offered an update at all. It now checks as soon as it connects.
  • Stations no longer stay joined by a line on the map after their contact has finished. A station that closed mid-contact could leave the line drawn for half an hour.
  • The app no longer asks you to sign in every single time you open it. — Only installations that genuinely have no working sign-in are asked; if yours is already signed in you get the reminder bar at most, and nothing interrupts you on launch.

0.22.5

Sign in again when you open this version — it takes a code by email and about ten seconds. Everything keeps working if you don't, but sign-in is being switched on shortly and this puts your station on credentials that will pass.

New

  • The app asks you to sign in again on first launch, with a reminder bar if you would rather do it later. Nothing is blocked either way.

Fixed

  • Signing in did not always stick. — If your installation had signed in on an older version, the app was quietly refusing to use the sign-in it already had, so the service treated the station as not signed in at all. Signing in again fixes it for good.
  • Icom rigs could be left transmitting. — If the radio missed the “stop transmitting” command the app believed it had stopped anyway, so the rig sat there keyed while the screen said receiving. It now waits for the radio to confirm, asks again if it does not, and reads back what the radio is actually doing rather than assuming.
  • Weather fax now decodes when the dial is not exactly on frequency. — It measures the black and white tones off the air instead of assuming them, and the log now says whether it can hear a fax signal at all — and which way to nudge the dial.
  • Choosing “CAT command” for PTT no longer crashes the app on startup. If the serial port cannot be opened the log says why and the station carries on without PTT.
  • Your profile picture appears when you reopen the profile editor.

0.22.4

New

  • Distances shown in miles everywhere — map, records, and the profile card.
  • A “Verbose” tick box on the Log screen — PTT keying, audio devices, every call to the service and its reply, and each picture and message in and out. A Copy button beside it puts the whole log on the clipboard for a bug report.
  • The loading screen quotes a beta tester.

Fixed

  • Choosing “CAT command” for PTT no longer crashes the app on startup. — If the serial port cannot be opened — unplugged adapter, wrong port, another program holding it — the log says so and the station carries on without PTT. Selecting CAT without a rig driver is called out too.
  • The profile picture reappears when the profile editor is reopened. — It always uploaded correctly; the editor never loaded it back, so it looked lost.
  • Stations no longer disappear from the map while plainly still working people. — Presence was overwritten when several stations reported at the same moment, and whoever reported least often kept losing.
  • A station that stops reporting but is still being worked stays on the map at its last known grid, marked second-hand rather than silently vanishing.

0.22.3

New

  • Copy a received picture straight out of the app — a Copy button on the received-picture pane and the full-size viewer puts it on the clipboard as a file. GIFs stay animated.
  • GIFs also play while staged to transmit, and on the gallery cards.
  • The status log names the build you are running at startup.

Fixed

  • Installing the app always replaces the old version properly, whichever version was there before.

0.22.2

Everything new and fixed since 0.21.1, folded into one public release.

New

  • Runs on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04) as well as Windows.
  • First-run setup wizard; restores settings on a new PC.
  • “Update available” notice when a newer version is out.
  • Paste a picture from the clipboard into the Transmit screen (or Ctrl+V) — a copied file, a screenshot, or a browser image.
  • Received GIFs animate in the live picture pane and the full-size viewer.
  • SSTV transmit shows a live “time left” countdown.
  • “Sync” button on the map — refresh who is on air, on demand.
  • “Received from internet” tab — each picture once, listing everyone who got it.
  • Auto station-ID on every transmission, a proper beacon, follow / on-air alerts.
  • Your own quick-message buttons (callsign, grid, name, report).
  • Reception reports — who copied your pictures, and how well.
  • Personalise: accent colour, four themes, text size / zoom, notification toggles.
  • Waterfall colour palettes.
  • Customisable callsign stamp on outgoing pictures (corner, colour, size).
  • Default calling frequency now 144.550 MHz.

Fixed

  • Stuck on “receiving” — which also blocked transmit — recovers on its own.
  • The brief freeze when a hybrid picture arrived is gone.
  • Every received picture is saved as a viewable .jpg (SSTV and digital included), and old broken ones are repaired.
  • The picture you send stays staged afterwards, so you can send it again.
  • Active stations with no grid no longer vanish from the map.
  • The map reads your location from Profile or Settings.
  • No more showing up several times on the network after a reinstall.
  • Operator profile “they sent / they received” pictures display.
  • The update banner’s “What’s new” button was unreadable (yellow).
  • Blank desktop shortcut icon.
  • Pictures-list scrollbar no longer hides itself.
  • Clearer, plain-English wording throughout.

Removed

  • Morse code (CW) sending and receiving.

Older releases are not listed here. Open Signal is in active beta and versions before 0.22.2 are superseded — install the current build rather than an earlier one.

Running an older version?

Download the current build and install it over the top — your settings, logbook and pictures are kept. Receiving is free forever; a licence adds transmit.

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