LiveATC Air Radio

2026 Update: Besides the expected inconsistent quality of volunteer-provided streams (mostly bad), the LiveATC servers themselves can’t seem to provide a consistent connection. Constant drops and buffering delays and disconnections. Funny enough the app seems to work slightly better than the website now, but overall I wouldn’t recommend anyone spending actual money on this service. Original review (2022): I much prefer the website to the app. First, on the website it clearly lists the frequency alongside the description. On the app it will just provide the name (i.e. KSEA Ground) without a frequency. To find the freq you have to select the channel and then select “view frequency.” There is ample room on all pages to show freqs, requiring extra click-throughs is just bad UI. Second, there is SIGNIFICANT delay on the app vs. the website. The website is typically within a few seconds of real-time, whereas the app takes a very long time to load a channel and consistently has delays of 30 seconds or more. If you’re listening to ATC in conjunction with plane spotting, such a delay makes the app practically unusable. I’m still a huge LiveATC supporter and the website is still an excellent resource, unfortunately this app is poorly built with too much lag to be useful.

Very useful to find out firsthand what’s happening in preparation for travel. And with more and more gate to gate satellite-based inflight Wi-Fi you can follow your flight throughout. That said - please consider the following: 1) Please list the frequencies a station is covering as per of the table cell when opening to select a feed (favorites, change channel, or directory). When listening to the feed there is a list. This doesn’t need the description- just a comma separated list of frequencies. 2) Would be great to have more than airport diagram linked, but also departure/arrival/approach plates. 3)This one is tougher and not sure it’s possible. But would love to be able to enter a flight number and find what channel the flight is on. 4) In the feed frequency page, it would be great to know if feeds are mixed, or if a stereo split then which feed is in which ear. This probably means a bigger change but it would be helpful. Thanks for a great app and thanks to everyone who provides feeds to the system.

When I was learning to fly a struggle a bit with communications and talking on the radio, and my instructor point to me into this app which let you listen into pilots and controllers talking to each other at airports both small and big. I got to practice listening to read backs and then see whether I could catch all the information. It's amazing to be able to pull up radio calls from airports all around the country and be able to listen to what radio comes sound like when the weathers good when the weathers bad on a busy day, during a major air show, and it's all as close as my phone.