* Crossposted in SCANRADIO
* Crossposted in SHORTWAVE
* Crossposted in RADIO_HOBBY-ALL
* Crossposted in TECH
* Crossposted in NET202_RADIO
Copyright (c) 1997   Bill Cheek
Harken!   Ye Publique Notice!  Hear Ye!
Know how professional spectrum analyzers cost anywhere from $10,000 on
up to $60,000?  And how hobbyist versions from ICOM, etc, can cost an
arm and a leg?  Well, hold on to your socks................
Little did anyone know, but a cheap, but great spectrum analyzer has
been on the market for quite a while now in the form of WINRADIO!
Yes, that's right, WinRadio has spectral display capability, but no
one knew of it, including yours truly.  But now we know!
Coming soon, perhaps within a day or two of reading this, is Version
2.0 of the standard control program for WinRadio, that contains an RF
SPECTRUM SCOPE with some pretty awesome capabilities.....free upgrade,
to the best of my knowledge!
For more information, including download of the upgrade software:
 http://www.winradio.net.au (Australia)
 http://www.winradio.com    (USA)
 E-Mail: info@winradio.net.au
And now, a brief overview of the RF SPECTRUM SCOPE capabilities in the
coming Version 2.0 of the WinRadio control software:
    Version 2.0 contains some basic refinements of the main
control program and one whopper of a new feature to make the
competition eat their hearts out: an RF Spectrum Scope, basically a
spectrum analyzer feature previously found only on very expensive
radios,or as an expensive add-on!  Zowie! It's too cool for words!
    One of the slickest things about the new RF Spectrum Scope is
the ability to position the cursor on a "blip" and instantly, WinRadio
tunes to that frequency!  Bzzzaaaap!  That quick!
    The RF Spectrum Scope has seven selectable spectrum scan steps
as follows:  1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, & 100 kHz; two Resolution
Bandwidths: 6 & 17 kHz; and a slew of setup and control options,
including single and continuous sweeps; Max/Min/Previous/Current
sweeps in different colors (especially slick for identifying 2-way
systems that key and unkey all the time, in contrast to broadcast and
continuous carrier signals that are always present.)  WinRadio can be
muted or unmuted during sweeps.
    Sweeps can be set by either of two criteria: start-stop
(lower-upper limits), or center freq and bandwidth.  Wicked!  Utterly
delightful is the ability to save the spectrum screen to a very small
file and subsequently to reuse it as an active display, or later
configure it as a photograph of a sweep.  Hundreds of sweeps can be
saved in a very small amount of disk space.  A test sweep of the
88-108 MHz FM Broadcast Band required all of 1250-bytes.
    The RF Spectrum Scope, has a Zoom-In / Zoom-Out feature to
make the spectral display appear as detailed or not as you choose.
V2.0 upgrades the main control program in a number of subtle ways,
including an S-Meter that shows numeric values of 0-100 as well as the
original bargraph display. The RF Spectrum Scope shows the relative
S-meter numbers, too!  (A new scanning Squelch was added to the main
program, too.)
    Spectrum sweeps can be set to pretty much any desired limits,
though the narrower, the more efficient, of course.  I'm not sure what
the sweep speed is, but it would be measured in steps per second, and
therefore is probably sync'd to the Scan/Search rate for the main
radio at 50 per second.  Given the seven sweep steps mentioned above,
it is possible to sweep 20-MHz of spectrum in under 10-sec.
If V2.0 of the WinRadio software isn't available for download at the
above two Web sites when you read this, check back periodically during
the coming week, as I'm told it will be released shortly.
=====
Copyright (c) 1997 Bill Cheek/COMMtronics Engineering  and absolutely
All Rights Are Reserved.
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|    Bill Cheek ~ COMMtronics Engineering ~ World Scanner Report    |
|             PO Box 262478 ~ San Diego, CA 92196-2478              |
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|     E-mail: bcheek@san.rr.com                                     |
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