First of all - thank you,
@thewraith2008, for this superb plug-in. My only interests are Airband and MilAir and I am using Airspy R2. After the latest upgrade (scanning speed improved) I am in transition from Vasily plug-in to yours. . I have 5 questions about it:
1. In Vasily plug-in you could select Auto skip AND Auto Lock simultaneously - here you can only select Auto skip OR Auto Lock OR Reset noise floor. Why it works this way? I would like to set Reset noise floor for 60 second and Auto skip for 59 seconds. Right now if a new spur occurs between my 60 second noise floor evaluation it stays on a fake signal until it disappears and it can block the scan for a while. Auto skip would force the scan to resume and noise floor evaluation just after the skip could "catch" the fake signal as "spur".
As good as the original plug-in was, it contained bugs and issues. This was one of them.
Auto skip,
Auto Lock and
Reset noise floor all used the same timer, the one with the lowest trigger time would be the only one that worked as it would reset the timer after it elapsed. This is why it is now set to only select one at a time. I was going to separate the
Reset noise floor as this should be able to be used by itself. (It's on the TODO list)
2. If I am right that the downside of Dynamic Noise Floor is that it can evaluate a real signal as floor and nothing could be heard during the reset interval? For example, if an airport is nearby and a controller is talking during the evaluation of noise floor, the strong signal will be treated as floor and weaker signals generated from planes (further away) will not break the 10 db SNR (my red horizontal line setting) scanner "squelch".
Yes, while resetting noise floor (1 selected defined frequencies pass), there will be no stopping on any activity.
If a frequency is active, it will be seen as a point to set the new noise floor. If the frequency stops been active, each pass the scanner makes will slowly adjusted the noise floor to the point where future activity will be detected again.
3. Airband (118.000 - 137.000 MHz) and 8.33 kHz step size - is the VFO precisely tuned for example to 118.0166 MHz or 118.0416 MHz - or is there some rounding done, for example to 118.017 or even 118.015? In Vasily plug-in I had a 5kHz step size with 6kHz bandwidth and with this "workaround" I was manage to catch 118.0166 MHz as 118.015 MHz because it was still inside the bandwidth. This also leads to my next questions.
No rounding, this is the problem with the default SDR# 8.33 step size that it accumulative gets worse as it calculates next step.
There is a link in the PDF to a list of 8.33 frequencies the plug-in tunes too. (118.0166 MHz or 118.0416 MHz)
In this plug-in, you use 8.333 as
step size and the plug-in calculates the correct frequencies.
4. As you reuse/improve Vasily code I would like to know the relation between step size and bandwidth in scan ranges. In your documentation "Channel bandwidth for signal level detection" you use the % of the step size. Is it the same as in Vasily? I thought that in his plug-in you could narrow the bandwidth to not catch unwanted off-channel spurs (for example I used 8 kHz bandwidth - not 12 or 10kHz - with 25 kHz step in 225-400 and I thought only +/-4Khz off carrier was evaluated).
If you use a start frequency as 118 MHz and
step size of 25 KHz then the scanner scans 118.000 then 118.025 then 118.050 etc..... to end frequency which may not be the actual value entered but will be multiples of step size that is closest to it.
"Channel bandwidth for signal level detection" is something I added (not in vasili's version), in the latest version it uses 'Hz' not %.
Vasili's version uses wider bandwidth than it should and can detect activity out side of the channel
bandwidth. This is reason for some of the random stoppages.
Bandwidth is the RF bandwidth of frequency used.
You can scan at 25KHz but the RF bandwidth is 12.5 KHz for narrowbanding plans now in use.
Yes, this plug-in allows you to narrow the bandwidth used to detect activity hopefully avoiding spurs/noise that may exist in the RF channel.
5. Did you change any code that uses the "Detect" value to stabilise the receiver? In Vasily plug-in I was manage to go as low as 30 and still pick up all the signals that I want (cross checked with Uniden 3600XLT scanner). Will this value work the same in your plug-in?
No,
Detect is just the delay in the processing loop.
Will the same value work, don't know try it. I wouldn't get hung up on a number.
I'm sure this version is an improvement over the old version, not sure why people insist on clinging to the old version.
Latest version (v2.2.10.0) can be found here: MEGA - Download
Release post
here
this plugin so far! It sure beats playing "Whack-A-Mole" with the mouse while looking at the screen. When I get a little bit more time I'm going to have to read the documentation as I've noticed it does not always log hits, and I cannot figure out why.
