FRN client on Android

For some time now there has been a Free Radio Network client for Android doing the rounds known as GRNClient, and in that time I have never been able to get it to work, until now.

I purchased a hudl this week, this is a £119 Android tablet sold exclusively by British supermarket chain Tesco, and is as near as makes no difference a stock device aside from a Tesco button on the bottom left of the screen.

The GRNClient app is not available in Google Play, you have to download the apk file, allow the device to install from unknown sources, and then you can install it.

Given that some of the example screens are in Italian on the website it comes from I'll post some English screen captures here from my Samsung Galaxy S4 as it is yet to have the GRN client installed at time of posting and this makes a perfect excuse to do so.

1. Allow the phone or tablet to install from unknown sources, you do this by:
   
   
   

   

   Selecting "Security"

   
   

   

   Ticking "Unknown sources"

   
   

   

   and tapping "OK"
   
   

   
   
   
   
2. Next you want to download the client, click here, the page will be in Italian so you can translate it if you wish, scroll to the bottom and you will find a QR code, if you have a barcode scanner on your device simply scan this, if not there are free barcode scanners on Google Play that you can use.
3. Click the link the barcode scanner gives you, it will look like this, or you can simply press "open browser and it should download.
   
   
4. The download will be in the notifications at the top of the device's screen, pull it down and tap the apk
   
   You will be presented with the following
   
   
   Tap "Install" to install the app, you should then see install progress like this
   
   
   
   
   And when it is done it will then give you the option to open the app like this
   
   
   
   Tap "Open"
5. With the app started you need to do some final things before it can work, you will be presented with this screen
   

This is the screen that will display other clients in the net on the server that you are in, you need to press menu, this will present the following options

If you tap "Settings", you will get something similar to the following

All you need to do now is fill in the information, be aware, however, that you must specify a port number if it is not 10024 or the client will crash, for example if you were to connect to 446Muppets (where my gateways are) you would need to enter the address as normal but add :10025 to the end, this is the port, I figured this out through some trial and error.

And that is it, now you can use your tablet or phone on the Free Radio Network like you would your shack computer, you may find that for best results you should plug in a headset.

Remember to test in the Test room first, use the messages option to send message to start the parrot if you need to.

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