Decoder Reliability – What to Expect

These are UKAFG’s own native decoders, built without relying on third-party decoder libraries. They vary in how much real-world testing has confirmed them so far:

• AIS and ACARS are the most thoroughly proven — both validated against real recorded on-air captures, not just synthetic test signals. AIS was confirmed against a real Thames estuary recording (vessel positions decoded correctly against known data), and ACARS was confirmed against a real aircraft transmission, decoding correctly and passing its integrity check.
• POCSAG and RTTY have been proven through internal self-testing against synthetically generated signals, confirming the decoding pipeline itself is correct — but not yet confirmed against a real recorded on-air signal in the same way AIS and ACARS have been.
• DMR decodes metadata only — colour code, timeslot, call type, talkgroup, and source ID — with no voice decoding. It’s designed to fail safe: metadata is only shown once it’s passed a strong integrity check, so a weak or corrupted transmission simply won’t produce a row rather than risking a wrong ID. That said, this integrity gating itself hasn’t yet been confirmed against real captured DMR traffic.

In short: treat AIS and ACARS results with the most confidence, and treat POCSAG/RTTY/DMR results as generally reliable by design but still maturing in terms of real-world confirmation. If something looks unexpected from one of these three, it’s worth a second look rather than taking it as certain.