* Crossposted in SCANRADIO
* Crossposted in SHORTWAVE
* Crossposted in RADIO_HOBBY-ALL
* Crossposted in NET202_RADIO
* Crossposted in TECH
(c) 1996 Bill Cheek    11 of 12
   Signal strength indicator - The S-meter, located below the volume,
squelch and mute buttons, shows the relative strength of the received radio
signal. Full scale is equivalent to 100, and the value is used for squelch
control and the scanning threshold.  You can see the numerical value of the
signal strength when you click on the Setup button. This value roughly
corresponds to dB (decibels).
   Miscellaneous indicators - There are three indicators located at the
bottom-right area of the panel.  These include the Sqlch (squelch), PLL
(Phase Lock Loop) and Power.
   The Sqlch indicator shows whether the squelch is active or not.  If it
is green, the signal strength is above the squelch value, and the audio
output is not muted.  If it is red, the signal strength is less than the
squelch value, and the audio output is either about to be muted (with a
delay set in the general options) or is muted.
   The PLL indicator displays the status of the Phase Locked Loop.  The PLL
is the heart of the frequency synthesizer of the WinRadio receiver.  If
green, the PLL is functioning normally.  If red, then the PLL is not tuned
to the specified frequency, and usually indicates a hardware problem.
   The Power indicator indicates whether power is on or off.
   World Time and Local Time displays - located at the bottom-left corner
of the panel, indicate the current time and date.  The leftmost World Time
display shows the UTC (Universal Coordinated Time), also known as GMT
(Greenwich Meridian Time), which is the time standard used for
long-distance radio communications around the world.  The Local Time
display is provided for convenience.
   The format of the date and time is configured from the Windows Control
Panel and also, to a lesser degree, from the WinRadio Configure Date and
Time dialog box.  The time zone you are in can also be configured in the
date and time dialog box.
SUMMARY OF WINRADIO
   I'll review WinRadio's performance and fine points in the next issue.
My tentative judgment until then is that there are no showstoppers or
glaring performance issues, all things considered.  Clearly, there is room
for improvement, like for instance, WinRadio desperately needs at least two
BNC antenna jacks with an internal automatic switch to select between A and
B, with A for 500 kHz to 30 MHz and B for 30 MHz to 1300 MHz.
   On the other hand, what affordable radio has this feature? WinRadio
needs a user-accessible output interface like for auto-tape recording,
spectrum displays, CTCSS tone decoding, and other useful things.
Fortunately, I think WinRadio will prove to be very "hackable" to this
extent, and so many of its shortcomings may only be temporary.  In a word,
I like WinRadio
CONTINUED TO WinRadio Review 12/12
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