SDR# Scanner plug in setup advice

[questnz]

After reading someone else experiences I installed Scanner plug in into SDRsharp ver. 1700, latest plug in downloaded from Russian site. All is good but I have few questions to more experience members using Scanner plug in.
As per my setup pictures, Air scanning is perfect, but VHF/UHF police is a choppy affair. Omni-X Scanner antenna.
1. How best to setup Bandwidth, what is governing Bandwidth setup for different frequencies scan
2. In my area VHF is on FM , UHF is on NFM, there is no option in SDRsharp to setup this correctly, how this affect scanning if any
3. What are red and yellow lines above Waterfall, what they represent and how to setup them in correct position
4. Waterfall, what are the red lines
5. Is there any other setup as I seen on some other pictures below Waterfall, or it was for different SDR ?
6 . Sometime scanner keep scanning just after stay on frequency for a second, possible I messed up something here?
7 . Anything else to check/uncheck eg Detect value

This may also help other members who maybe interested to install Scanner plug in.

 

[mancow]

The scanner plugin settings are defined in the Edit scan ranges box that opens a spread sheet window.
Your VHF will be narrow FM as well which is just FM in SDR# terms. (set it to 12500)
Are you talking about the red and narrow dashed lines in the scanner window? If so they define the point at which a signal is considered strong enough to be valid for the radio to stop scanning (think squelch) and the yellow is the hysteresis where as a signal can drop down to that level and still be considered valid (helps smooth out operation).
You can place the scanner window above, below, left, right using the configure window and the bottom drop down Panview position.
It can be set to remain on a frequency, dwell on a frequency after a signal is lost for however many seconds you want by changing parameters in the Configure scanner box in the top box.

 

[questnz]

Thank you very much, I will check/change all settings accordingly as advised. I am waiting for new SDRuno ver. 1.3 to be released (with scanning capabilities) then I will similar setup on SDRplay RSP1A. Actually I found many Air frequencies
Regards Chris

 

[Ubbe]

In the SDR# folder on your PC you have a file called BandPlan.xml

Edit that with Notepad so that your frequency ranges matches FM NFM AM and whatever and the step size valid for the range. You can even set the min and max frequency value to be the same to single out one frequency when you perhaps want to highlight that with a specific color.
Just check that you have only one line that specify the frequency and edit duplicates to not include your additional configurations.

I haven't tested but it's possible that SDR# reads the file from top to bottom and uses the first matching frequency, so adding your own ranges at the top might save you some headaches.

/Ubbe

 

[questnz]

Thanks Ubbe, I can see that, will check tomorrow and add/edit stuff I want. All seems to be running well now under Windows but I am getting errors running (scanner) in VM Ware Workstation environment, I will try setup another in Virtual Box. Not that critical but I want to separate radio desktop stuff from my normal notebook setup. All testing is done on the desktop. I hope new SDRuno will be release soon so RTL SDR will not longer will be my prime priority. All this is just "cream on the cake" as the handheld radios are my preference devices out of home and out of vehicles. I am still in try and error stage, cheap scanning setup specially as most of us already have the devices

Regards Chris

 

[JELAIR]

The 'detect, ms' setting is important to false hits and the overall scanning-speed.

The lower you set this; the faster it will scan a range, but also cause more false hits (stop on short noise-bursts that aren't actually valid signals)

If you set the red line higher, you can lower the 'detect, ms'. This will give you faster scanning-speeds without false hits, but ignore signals that aren't too strong.

If you want it to stop at more signals, even those with lower power (faint signals), then you lower the red line but should increase the 'detect, ms' time. This way the scanner will more accurately determine if a spike is a noise-burst or a valid signal.

So it's basically a compromise and you probably need to experiment until you find the combination of settings that work best for your use

Once you get some time under the belt with the scanner it's actually very flexible

Set up delicately it can even work somewhat well on HF

If you get a red spike; it's a channel that has been locked out, meaning the scanner won't stop there.
You mark a frequency for that by hitting the big X button (when the scanner is stopped at that frequency, or if the scanner shows the frequency (the white text that you can see in the scanner-window)

the 'recycle' arrows is if you want to only temporarily lock out a frequency.
If the scanner stops on a frequency that broadcasts something you don't want to listen to, you hit the recycle button and the scanner will ignore that frequency until the signal has stopped and a new one is broadcasting there (it's basically the same as the time-out setting inside settings, where you can tell the scanner how long to stay at a channel before dropping it and continue the scan. By the way; I recommend using the 'reset noise floor' in there, but again; experiment to find what you prefer In there you also have settings for what is effectively a squelch; timers for how fast to turn the volume ON and OFF when a signal is detected as ON or OFF. How you set these will affect if you get no noise or noise before or after transmissions. It's trial and error to set these, so again; experiment)

I think it's a really good scanner
jacob.

EDIT; one more thing; if you accidentally lock out a channel, you have to edit the scanner-entries.xml file and remove it from the list of 'SkipFrequencyArray' (there is a section within each scanning-range (only if you have locked out any channels), so make sure you choose the correct one)

 

[questnz]

Thank you all for the advice, I will definitely edit everything. Still testing the setup, it cost nothing as I have all hardware/software already.
Hopefully other members will benefit from this thread as well.
ps, Playing with red/yellow lines help a lot, audio on all frequencies clear now. Scan rates very good