Does a Scanner with this feature exist?

[delay877]

Hello!

I have shy'd away from scanners as they seem to not have a feature that I deem is fundamental to a scanner, and that feature is multi VFO decoding and recording.
When I am on vacation or out and about, I am hunting for transmissions or wanting to hear certain transmissions that arn't well documented. A huge example of this is the AirBand.

I designed an SDR++ plug in that allows me to decode all transmissions in a given bandwidth, ie, 8mhz for an RX888, record them, then play them back sequentially. In this way, I don't miss anything in that bandwidth. If I am really unsure, I'll use an HackRF and decode all transmission in a 20mhz window.

Scanners seem to either be to slow and will miss airband transmission, as they are usually under 5 seconds and.. they can't look at a wide bandwidth and decode multiple transmissions at once.

So my question is, does a scanner exist that can do this?

 

[prcguy]

There are setups that will do that like recording the entire HF band from 2 to 30MHz to play back and tune things in later and the same can be done at VHF, UHF or anywhere. Problem I see is processing power and storage. You want to record a 20MHz window of VHF air band for awhile? Prepare to have many multi terabyte drives with fast data rates for storage.

 

[delay877]

There are setups that will do that like recording the entire HF band from 2 to 30MHz to play back and tune things in later and the same can be done at VHF, UHF or anywhere. Problem I see is processing power and storage. You want to record a 20MHz window of VHF air band for awhile? Prepare to have many multi terabyte drives with fast data rates for storage.

That is true, the KiwiSDR could do this for HF.

Sorry, when I meant record, I meant recording demodulated audio, not I/Q. An hour of 20mhz AirBand is about 200MB of audio.

 

[prcguy]

That is true, the KiwiSDR could do this for HF.

Sorry, when I meant record, I meant recording demodulated audio, not I/Q. An hour of 20mhz AirBand is about 200mb of audio.

So you want to have a lot of receivers/demodulators going at the same time creating a bunch of audio files? Like recording a chunk or all of the air band in 25KHz increments?

 

[MaineGuy]

I have been pondering this issue myself.

I use sdrtrunk along with my 150. It doesn't scan so much as listen to whatever channels you have defined - for my RTL SDR that's about 2 MHz per device.

It creates about 100 virtual channels per device, but there is no problem for transmissions that span a virtual channel. It will log / record / stream as many channels as are active simultaneously.

That's pretty nice. It catches more than a scanner, but in a much more limited band. These new programs that transcribe the captured audio can really make use of this.

A scanner could do the same, but listening to two transmissions at the same time would probably not be popular. Some sort of buffering / queuing would be needed.

Multiple active tuners might help with a more sophisticated priority scan though.

I think this is at least part of why so many people here have multiple scanners. Maybe they do listen to several things at a time. I've got two SDRs and an SDS, and I often have multiple channels talking.

 

[delay877]

So you want to have a lot of receivers/demodulators going at the same time creating a bunch of audio files? Like recording a chunk or all of the air band in 25KHz increments?

Whatever a single receivers max bandwidth is, say 1mhz or I think it's proper to say 1msps, and then spawn VFOs on the fly when a transmission appears then demodulate it.
So if 1 transmission appears, and then half way through another appears, record both.

Here's a link to how to my Channel Bank Module scanner function works. it does a fantastic job with weak signals. I've purposely pushed the threshold super low so it catches everything as a demo for the video.

 

[bearcatrp]

Receivers have always been better than scanners. But also cost more. My R30 smokes any scanner at receiving but scanners will scan faster but do miss more. Now that I have a 150, will be testing this against my R30. When I had my SDS200, used proscan to record everything 24/7. Had a dedicated computer with a fairly large hard drive. Haven’t done this with my 150, yet.

 

[KC1UA]

It looks like a forthcoming version of the MykolaSDR software may have this capability of super fast scanning with multiple VFO's and apparently recording.

MykolaSDR - Професійний сканер

Багатоканальний SDR сканер. Екстремальна швидкість, 100 каналів запису, Dynamic Noise Floor. Підтримка RTL-SDR, Airspy, HackRF.

mykola-sdr.netlify.app

I've been using the free version, which is the only one available at the moment, but its performance alone is quite remarkable. The apparent forthcoming Amateur and Professional versions will have recording capability.

I'm using an Airspy R2 SDR with it and scanning the entire military air band. Pretty impressive results.

 

[MaineGuy]

I was thinking he might be a Russian, and I'm old enough to not be cool with that.

Turns out he's probably a good guy:



Spooks know what's really going on, and what's BS...

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

My R30 smokes any scanner at receiving but scanners will scan faster but do miss more.

IF only it could trunk track and do DMR...

 

[delay877]

Receivers have always been better than scanners. But also cost more. My R30 smokes any scanner at receiving but scanners will scan faster but do miss more. Now that I have a 150, will be testing this against my R30. When I had my SDS200, used proscan to record everything 24/7. Had a dedicated computer with a fairly large hard drive. Haven’t done this with my 150, yet.

Let me know your thoughts on that. the R30 looks like an awesome scanner.

 

[delay877]

It looks like a forthcoming version of the MykolaSDR software may have this capability of super fast scanning with multiple VFO's and apparently recording.

MykolaSDR - Професійний сканер

Багатоканальний SDR сканер. Екстремальна швидкість, 100 каналів запису, Dynamic Noise Floor. Підтримка RTL-SDR, Airspy, HackRF.

mykola-sdr.netlify.app

I've been using the free version, which is the only one available at the moment, but its performance alone is quite remarkable. The apparent forthcoming Amateur and Professional versions will have recording capability.

I'm using an Airspy R2 SDR with it and scanning the entire military air band. Pretty impressive results.

I love that app too! the problem is.. playback is simultaneous.

 

[KC1UA]

I love that app too! the problem is.. playback is simultaneous.

Not sure about how the forthcoming pay versions will handle recorded playback, but I'd think you'd be able to separate recordings. We'll see.

 

[delay877]

Here’s a full 10mhz of bandwidth being monitored at once. This is actually over WiFi from my SDRPlay in the attic. It’s a desktop discone about 40 feet in the air.

 

[k7ng]

Phil Karn KA9Q claims he has developed pretty much that capability, to acquire dozens of signals over a wide band as they appear. All Linux-based, I believe. I haven't gone that far into his developments yet. Look at ka9q-radio.org for more information.

 

[delay877]

Phil Karn KA9Q claims he has developed pretty much that capability, to acquire dozens of signals over a wide band as they appear. All Linux-based, I believe. I haven't gone that far into his developments yet. Look at ka9q-radio.org for more information.

that's really awesome! a headless linux version of what my module is. He does state it is a work in progress and I thought it only supported FM but it does support AM voice decoding. This is promising, thank you for the link.