What is Reddit's opinion of Xradio ADS-B Receiver?

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I had my Windows laptop w/Virtual Radar installed last trip, with a homebrew coaxial colinear antenna. Looks like there are some apps for an Android tablet, which I also carry with me for my drone. Gonna try the app next trip, the laptop setup is a bit bulky.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilsonae.android.usbserial&hl=en\_CA&gl=US

I use android devices in amateur radio applications, that's probably not too common here.

One use is high power/long range wifi networking. Consumers devices in the USA are limited to 0.1 watts transmitting power, but with an amateur radio license you can use 1500 watts. Wifi hundreds of miles, not feet. Dynamic mesh networking, all kinds of cool shit. An android device plus a linksys router running off a car battery or ups battery = portable mesh node offering all kinds of services.

With a cheap portable VHF radio ($25) and a homemade cable (or a fancy bluetooth device like this: http://www.mobilinkd.com/ ) you can transmit and receive APRS packets using APRSDroid. https://aprsdroid.org/ APRS is essentially a messaging, location and weather reporting system that works without any dependancies on infrastructure like power, internet, phone lines etc. You can even transmit APRS packets to the international space station when it's overhead and it will relay them back to earth. I've communicated with my father in Illinois from my house in florida by bouncing packets through the ISS while it was passing over. Takes careful timing but the ISS passes over a few times a day no matter where on earth you are. There is also a bulletin board system on the ISS where you can leave/read messages, sort of old school but still cool.. a BBS in space :)

With a cheap tiny SDR dongle and an antenna (everything fits in a pocket) you can receive and decode all kinds of interesting signals. Airplane beacons, signals from orbitting satellites or the space station, power company equipment, local police and fire trunkong systems, railway equipment etc. There's tons of RF stuff happening all around you, android + cheap hardware will let you see most of it. No license needed for that kind of thing either. Some apps:

http://sdrtouch.com/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilsonae.android.usbserial

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/ads-b-decoder-rtl-sdr-now-available-android/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.me.g4dpz.HamSatDroid

Then you can also use Android devices as the encoder/decoder for a huge range of HF radio signals, transmitting these does require a license (free and pretty easy to learn what's needed to pass the test) but listening doesn't need a license. Protocols like PSK31, SSTV, RTTY, etc have Android apps ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wolphi.psk31 for example) and can communicate literally around the world or into space. With jt65 you can bounce signals off the freaking moon. You do need an HF transceiver for this so a bit more expensive than the other stuff, though if you spend time searching can still be a great cheap hobby.

Yet another use is with emergency communications, there are Android apps that can be used to facilitate data exchange when everything else is broken, for instance communicating between shelters or hospitals when a disaster has taken down all other ways to communicate.

So..yeah I do a lot of nerdy stuff with Android and radios.

/r/amateurradio for more folks doing this sort of thing

Sorry for all the edits, keep thinking of other stuff and adding links