Software for LF monitoring

[Andre' Kesteloot]

Mike Dennison wrote:

> ON7YD wrote:
> > >>A software team from the Belgian amateur radio society UBA has developed
> > >>a programme that can be used to record fieldstrength measurements.
> > >>All you need is a PC with Win95/98 and a soundcard. The audio output of
> > >>the receiver is fed to the input of the soundcard.
>
> Johan wrote:
> > >AGC (which is present in most amateur receivers) will make such
> > >measurements almost useless (unless the AGC can be disabled).
> > >
> > >Please correct me if I'm wrong...
>
> I now have this software. It is just what I have been looking for as it plots
> the level
> of signal, and the noise level if the signal is not permanent. It can
> run for many hours and produces a small log file compared to the
> huge Spectrogram ones. An 8-hour overnight plot produced a 1M
> text file, with each dB measurement dated and timed, plus another
> file with much less info which is only 9k! I will post some graphs on
> my web site when I have figured out how to convert the text file into
> something that Excel can read.
>
> It is obviously optimised for eclipse monitoring, but will be of
> immense value in monitoring distant LF beacons to discover by
> more scientific means when the regular enhancements are. This
> will be especially valuable with that signal from the US which
> comes up close to 137kHz at night - as this will give us a really
> good lead as to when a EU/US QSO might be possible (or when to
> have Spectrogram monitoring for the AMRAD beacon).
>
> Yes, AGC can be a problem, but the program operates fine with
> the RF gain set well below the AGC threshold, so if the dynamic
> range required is low there should be no problem.
>
> I recommend anyone interested in LF propagation to download this
> program - find it at www.uba.be
>
> Mike