I have an SDR dongle I am using to listen to the radio, this has been flashed with different firmware to enable using it as a multi-band radio.
Set up your SDR dongle very easily.
https://securitronlinux.com/debian-testing/rtl-sdr-on-linux-with-a-rtl2838-dvb-t-dongle/.
The best software to use for listening to the radio on Linux is Gqrx.
Install this software easily on Ubuntu.
jason@Yog-Sothoth:~/Desktop$ sudo apt install gqrx-sdr |
Then load up the software and click the start button to begin listening to the radio.
Gqrx does support narrowband and USB/LSB frequencies. It is the best option to listen to aircraft frequencies as well as UHF and VHF. FM radio works very well. I am listening to the aircraft frequency on 126.964 AM and it works just fine. So, this is a very useful piece of software. You need a good antenna to pick up AM transmissions, but this is up to the user and depends upon your location. The only problem with aircraft AM transmissions is the need for a very good antenna to get the signal, but this just requires experimentation. taping up a long piece of wire can help with this.
The screenshot above shows my settings for listening to aircraft AM transmissions with Gqrx on AM. My antenna needs better gain, but I am getting there.
More information here: https://securitronlinux.com/bejiitaswrath/listen-to-vhf-and-uhf-radio-transmissions-easily-with-linux-software/.