WaveGazer The WaveGazer v1.2 A receiver control Program for the JRC NRD-535D Written during long years and first released in January 1994 by Andreas Meister Rte. de la Gare 13 CH-1131 Tolochenaz Switzerland WaveGazer June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 2 0. Index 1. Generalities .....................................................5 1.1 Standard Disclaimer, Warranty (none ;-) ......................5 1.2 Hardware Requirements ........................................5 1.3 Software Requirements ........................................6 1.4 Third Party Software .........................................6 1.5 Inspiration ..................................................6 1.6 Restrictions .................................................7 1.7 Copyright ....................................................7 1.8 How To Tell Me If You Like The WaveGazer .....................7 2. How To Get The WaveGazer .........................................9 3. History .........................................................10 4. A Quick Overlook ................................................11 5. Installation ....................................................13 5.1 Installation on Harddisk ................................ 13 .... 5.2 Run The WaveGazer ...........................................13 5.3 Tell The WaveGazer about your PC's speed ....................15 6. General Usage ...................................................17 6.1 Windows .....................................................17 6.2 Menus .......................................................17 6.3 Menu Options: ...............................................17 6.4 Textfields: .................................................19 6.5 Popupboxes ..................................................19 6.6 File Selection Boxes ........................................20 6.7 Restrictions ................................................20 7. General Receiver Control ........................................22 8. Receiver Control Window .........................................23 8.1 Controllable Features .......................................23 8.2 Attaching / Detaching The Receiver To The PC ................23 8.3 Operation ...................................................24 8.4 Keystrokes ..................................................25 9. The Memory Editor ...............................................27 9.1 Description .................................................27 9.2 Operation ...................................................27 9.3 Keystrokes ..................................................28 June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 3 10. The Memory Viewer ..............................................30 10.1 Operation ..................................................30 10.2 Keystrokes .................................................30 11. The Bandscan ...................................................31 11.1 Description ................................................31 11.2 Operation ..................................................32 11.3 Keystrokes .................................................34 12. The Pre-defined Bands ..........................................35 12.1 Theory .....................................................35 12.2 Examples ...................................................36 13. Automatic Recording ............................................37 13.1 Features ...................................................37 13.2 Operation ..................................................37 13.3 Keystrokes .................................................38 14. The Database ...................................................39 14.1 Concepts ...................................................39 14.2 Usage Of Databases .........................................39 14.3 Creating a new Database ................................ 40 .... 14.4 Tracking Mode ..............................................40 14.5 Database Cache .............................................40 15. The Logbook ....................................................41 15.1 Concepts ...................................................41 15.2 Usage Of Logbooks ..........................................41 15.3 Creating a new Logbook ................................ 41 ..... 16. The Database Window ............................................43 16.1 Description ................................................43 16.2 Operation ..................................................43 15.3 Keystrokes .................................................44 16.4 Loading Database Entries To Memory .........................45 16.5 Keystrokes For Memory Loader Window ........................45 17. Tracking Mode ..................................................46 17.1 Purpose ....................................................46 17.2 Operation ..................................................46 17.3 Keystrokes .................................................47 18. Search Window ..................................................48 18.1 Concepts ...................................................48 18.2 Operation ..................................................48 June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 4 18.3 Keystrokes .................................................49 19. Adding / Editing A Record ......................................51 19.1 Concepts ...................................................51 19.2 Operation ..................................................51 19.3 Editing A Record ...........................................52 19.4 Keystrokes .................................................52 20. Customization ..................................................54 20.1 Customization Of The WaveGazer .............................54 20.2 Customization Of The Printer ...............................54 20.3 Customization Of The Colors ................................55 21. Release Notes ..................................................57 In Release Beta.1: ..............................................57 In Release Beta.2: ..............................................57 In Release Beta.2.1 (never distributed): ........................57 In Release Beta.3: ..............................................57 In Release Beta.4: ..............................................58 In Release Beta.5.* (never distributed): ........................59 In Release Beta.6: ..............................................59 In v1.0 of WaveGazer: ...........................................60 In v1.0A of WaveGazer: ..........................................60 In v1.2 of WaveGazer ............................................60 22. Problems .......................................................61 June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 5 1. Generalities 1.1 Standard Disclaimer, Warranty (none ;-) This version of the WaveGazer is the second 'production version' of this product. I do not claim that this version is perfect, but I tried to eliminate all known bugs so far. If ever you find a bug, you are kindly invited to communicate it to me. (there are still some bugs and problems, I tried to document them in this User's Guide...) Since the WaveGazer is available free of charge, you install it on your own risk and I can not be made responsible for any damage made to your system hardware or software. Also, I do not take any com- mitment for fixing bugs, but I try to keep the WaveGazer on a good quality level, so I am really interested in your suggestions and bug reports. Please: If you submit a bug report, always include the version number and a complete description of your PC hard- and software. 1.2 Hardware Requirements The hardware I tested the WaveGazer on is rather limited: My two 286 clones I use at home (on which I developed most of the program; believe me it is very slow to compile the stuff...) and on a Oli- vetti 486/25 MHz and a 386/25 MHz in the office. I'm now the proud owner of a 486/DX2 66 MHz machine and of course, the WaveGazer also runs on this one. I would like to know on what hardware you are running it, to enlarge my so tiny list. Just for fun, I also tried it on PC emulators running on a UNIX machine and a WindowsNT PC: SoftPC from Insignia Solutions on a DECstation 5000-200 running Ul- trix and the DOS emulator on a DEC AXP PC 150 running WindowsNT! Even tough it ran on both of them, it does not mean at all that DOS emulators on machine XY are supported! The two above mentioned ex- amples are professional products, emulating the PC hardware rather than DOS itself, so consider them as an exception! The minimal hardware requirements are: IBM AT compatible or better (286 up) VGA display, 640 * 480 or better (do not load SVGA drivers) Microsoft compatible mouse 1 unused serial port 1 MB Ram June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 6 Hard disk, 20 Mega or more (the WaveGazer itself does not take a lot of disk space, but your databases maybe will?) 1.3 Software Requirements The program has been tested on MS-DOS v5.0 and v6.2, but it also runs on other DOS versions, I saw it on v6.0 (without stacker...!) and I started development under DOS v4.0 and finished v1.2 under DOS v5.0. MS-DOS v5.0 or later 'share' must be loaded for database use The WaveGazer does probably not work correctly on stacked parti- tions! 1.4 Third Party Software This program has been compiled using Borland C++ v2.0. The graphic is based on the well known BGI (Borland Graphic Interface) While most of the software is written by me (very proud...), I used some components out of the freeware/shareware pool: The database is implemented using CBase from Citadel Software The communication routines are based on IBMCOM, written by a cer- tain RAC... The logo was created using Microsoft Windows Paint, and then con- verted to a BGI file using the public domain software 'BMP2BGI' from R. G. Rasualis, Jr. The implementation of the mouse interrupt is heavily inspired by Dave Kirsch 1.5 Inspiration I did never see a receiver control software before I decided to write my own. But sometime ago, I got a copy of Tom Roach's NRD program and this lead me to some enhancement in my "Bandscan" fea- ture, and to the inclusion of what I call the "tracking mode". I was impressed by the NRD Software. Thomas Sundstroem from TRS Consultants and Richard Crisp were both a big help in testing and debugging the program. Thanks Guys...! June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 7 1.6 Restrictions The program may crash or hang if you use the WaveGazer without the receiver connected to the serial port. I should include some more error checking if no correct answers are read from the se- rial port, e.g. if another device than the '535 is connected to the port the WaveGazer thinks the '535 is. (a RTTY decoder, for stance...) n i If you stop the WaveGazer other than by using the foreseen menu option, the WaveGazer may let files in the directory pointed to by the environment variable "WG_SWP". So checking this directory periodically for left files may free missed disk space. Best workaround for this problem is to use a ramdisk as swap direc- tory: You do not have to worry about eventually let files and you gain in performance. You also may want to startup the WaveGazer from within a batch file which scans the directory for left files and then deletes them. Do not have the variable "WG_FIL" point to directory on a stacked disk, this will prevent the WaveGazer from startup. (anyone out there who tried it on DOS v6.2? I am not a DOS wizard at all so I do not use stacked or double-spaced partitions on my system...) For more restrictions, see chapter 6.7 1.7 Copyright This software is distributed freely to all owners of the NRD-535. I do not know how to copyright something, so it is not under any but a moral copyright. Myself, I copied ideas from other programs... Anyway, I ask programmers to tell me if they felt inspired by this program, and all other users if and how they use it. Just for my personal pride. 1.8 How To Tell Me If You Like The WaveGazer An important question. I wondered quite a long time if the final version of this software should become Shareware, if I should dis- tribute a crippled version to force people to register, etc. But all this would not match with the spirit of free information ex- change we are used to from the world of radio and from the elec- tronic networks. This is why I decided to make it Freeware. Anyway, there is a big amount of time put in over 22'000 lines of C/C++ code, and so on... (You know these phrases from other network distributed software packages) If ever you feel a need to be a reg- June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 8 istered user, send me what you feel adequate and I will keep you personally updated with new versions if ready. One thing I would like to ask every user of the WaveGazer is to an- nounce himself, by sending me a simple postcard from the place he lives. My wife and I adore getting postcards ;-) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 9 2. How To Get The WaveGazer Since the WaveGazer is free of charge, you are invited to share this software with other owners of the NRD-535D. I would not like sending out diskettes and printed manuals to non-paying users, so let's limit the free distribution to the Internet. At the moment of this writing, I'm clipped off the Internet, be- cause I left Digital Equipment, to go working in a bank. Hopefully there are some servers or BBS's on the net that are willing to store this software for downline loading. But there is at least one anonymous FTP site where from you may copy the software: Risto Ko- tolampis server called "nic.funet.fi" which holds an important col- lection of radio related software and textfiles. Look for the file "WG012.ZIP" in the directory "msdos/software". Thanks, Risto! Since I would like anybody using the WaveGazer to communicate me this, here my home address: Andreas Meister Rte. de la Gare 13 CH-1131 Tolochenaz SWITZERLAND Phone 41 21 802 43 05 If ever you should phone me, pleeeease think about the time differ- ential between your location and middle Europe! (If you have a map of Europe/Switzerland, look on the north shore of the large lake called "Lac Leman" for a town called "Lausanne", and there it is nearly...) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 10 3. History Once upon a time, my mother brought home some forms to participate at a publicity contest from Philips. The hole family filled in some tens of these forms, and we sent them to Philips. I forgot about them soon, but one nice day, the postman rang the doorbell, holding a parcel for me: A radio I won in the contest. It was a simple 4- wave radio, fe turing a so called short-wave magnifier. a Soon I spent my time fiddling around with this and other radios, I also bought some old 40-ies home receivers for close to nothing. One of these was a very nice one, with all major SW broadcast bands spread over a large display, a "magic eye" and a knob for bandwidth switching! (I only found later that this was the bandwidth, first I thought that it was just a second "tone" knob...) I used this en- gine to listen to Radio Beijing, and I sent a reception report to China. I was very proud as I got a QSL card from Beijing! Then, I was some more involved in school, and I let the SWLing more or less be. (Btw.: the nice old receiver is now in a museum for audio- visual stuff, the Audiorama in Territet/Montreux, Switzerland) Some years later, the nice little Sony ICF7600 was launched. I had no sleep until I had it and even less after I had it... A lot of SWLing filled my time during 4 years, then I began real life (work) and moved in a very small apartment without any possibility for an aerial, so the Sony was left unused except on some holiday trips. A few moves later, I found myself in a larger apartment with a Yaesu FRG7700, which I bought used, but never really used. My proj- ect was to build a fax decoder on a old Mac I owned these days, but soon I found that this was not the engine I needed. (The old Mac). I bought a PC clone and a fax decoder, but was not really satisfied with it, and let the whole thing be. Rather I began to write some programs, learning C. After I got a C++ primer in my hands, I bought a C++ compiler and wrote a class called "button" and some mouse handling routines. (the birth of the WaveGazer). Some scrollbars, textfields, togglebuttons etc. later, my (then still) girlfriend and I went to a trip to Argentina. With the ICF7600. Lots of time for listening to Latin American stations, and soon I felt an inner need for a nice receiver. One with a com- puter control feature. Why not assemble my programs to a receiver control program? (This decision was taken during a shower in a ho- tel in a Argentine town called San Martin de Los Andes...) Took the decision, bought the receiver and had a lot of undone pro- gramming. But one fine day, I thought that this program now should be ready to be used, this was the birth of the WaveGazer v1.0! Some weeks later, as I tried to use it myself, I found the imple- mentation of the database / logbook inadequate for real use, so the v1.2 was released with some minor and one major enhancement. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 11 4. A Quick Overlook This software has several features which (I hope) you may find use- ful. The whole thing is built on a graphic interface, so you can acti- vate all the stuff with mouse clicks, -motions and double-clicks, whereas most functions also can be accessed from the keyboard. The user interface is some 'Pseudo-Windows' but very basic since home made... One window is to control all possible receiver functions from the computer; there are still some analogous functions that cannot be controlled via RS232. This window is not very useful, controlling the receiver manually is much more convenient. It may be useful for very fine tuning, since the values for frequency, bandwidth s and pas band shift can be read out very accurate. Two more windows serve to manage the '535's 200 memory channels. You may edit every channel individually (define, delete, change, etc.) and you may overlook these definitions in another window. Useful may be the fact that you can save the 200 memory channels in a diskfile, and of course load the receiver's channels from such files; so you always can keep as much memory definitions as you want, in files of up to 200 channels. Channels are directly tunable, and receiver settings may be dumped directly in a chan- nel. Exciting is the Bandscan feature: You may draw a graph of the oc- cupation of a band and then you may click in the graph, e.g. on a peek representing a transmitter, and the receiver will be tuned directly to this transmission. Mouse dragging is possible, to stroll around the dial. These scan graphs may be saved in a file for later reloading, a previously interrupted and saved scan may be reloaded and resumed. The scanning can be most flexibly cus- tomized, and you may want to select the most used and preferred band with just a mouse click. There is also window that allows you to do unattended recording: the '535 has a timer relay on the back, which will be switched on at up to eight pre-defined times while the receiver will be tuned to a user defined memory channel. During long waiting periods the receiver is switched off to save its lifetime and your A/C cur- rent. A database system exists to hold either a database with records entered from a schedule or your 'would like to catch it' sta- tions. In a line oriented display, you can click, scroll, etc. around these entries, tuning the receiver directly to a selected entry. The database can be browsed following user defined search criteria, and you may have a unlimited number of databases, al- though only one open at a given time. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 12 The logbook is almost the same as the database, except that the fields in the database entry differ slightly to reflect their use. A logbook may be opened as a such (input only) or as a data- base, to be written, read and browsed. If the logbook is a log- book, it may be opened in parallel with the database. Browsing in the databases (logbooks), you are able to print the found records, load them directly into the receiver's memory (starting at a user defined channel number) and/or to load them in a file for later reloading the receiver's memory. With an open database, the radio may be manually tuned while the screen display highlights the entries in the database which match the current receiver frequency. The threshold for this matching is a user defined param ter. e Databases may be printed out on virtually every printer, at least if your printer is able to print 132 characters / line (limited usage also possible with 80 characters / line) Colors may explicitly be customized, while the preferred (last used) settings are saved for the next invocation of the program. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 13 5. Installation 5.1 Installation on Harddisk Installation is straightforward. Create a directory where you want to put all files concerning the WaveGazer. Do not install on a stacked part tion under DOS v6.0! i C:\>mkdir WG C:\>cd WG Unzip the zipfile using pkunzip.exe or any other compatible un- zipper C:\WG>pkunzip A:\WG012.ZIP Add the directory containing WG.EXE to your path or move WG.EXE to a directory in your path. Create a swap directory: The WaveGazer saves the graphics hidden by the windows in files to save precious memory. So we need a dedicated directory for these temporary files. (I used to use a ramdisk, for better performance on the 286, but my disks were old and slow...) C:\WG>mkdir SWP To be able to invoke the WaveGazer from everywhere, we need to define 2 environment variables in your "AUTOEXEC.BAT": set WG_FIL=C:\WG this is where all databases etc. will reside set WG_SWP=C:\WG\SWP where the windows save what they hide for later restore The database the WaveGazer relies on requires share to be loaded, so add a line for share to your "AUTOEXEC.BAT". Reboot your PC 5.2 Run The WaveGazer Once your PC booted, type C:>WG [com] [printer] [PCtime - UTC] [RXtime - UTC] June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 14 where the optional parameters com and printer define the ports where the receiver and the printer are attached. Default values are 1 (com1) for the receiver and "lpt1" for the printer. If you have your printer on "com1" and the receiver on "com2", invoke the WaveGazer with C:\>WG 2 com1 If the printer is on "lpt1" but the receiver on "com2", type C:\>WG 2 Only "1" or "2" are supported values for the receiver port, so do not connect your receiver to an eventual "com3/4" port. The parameter for the printer can have any value, as long as it represents a valid device or file name. That means you may also print to a file. The parameters "[PCtime - UTC]" and "[RXtime - UTC]" specify the time differential your device's clocks have respective to UTC. It is always difficult for me to say if we are ahead or behind UTC, so lets talk about "East" or "West". If you are west of UTC (Greenwich) the time differential is positive, else it is nega- tive. Imagine you live in the USA, 4 hours difference. Your re- ceiver's clock is set to UTC (this is what I recommend) and your PC's clock shows the localtime. Start the WaveGazer with the fol- lowing line: C:>WG 1 lpt1 4 0 Users in the UK normally will have both, the PC and the re- ceiver's clock set to UTC. (at least during wintertime...) They start the WaveGazer with C:>WG 1 lpt1 0 0 One case that shouldn't be very frequent but possible: User in Russia, 5 hours east of Greenwich, PC to localtime, receiver to localtime +1 (positive = west). We start the WaveGazer with: C:>WG 1 lpt1 -5 -4 If you want to change one of these parameters, you need to supply it again on the command line of a subsequent invocation of the WaveGazer. If you want to change the last parameter, all leading parameters need to be supplied. In general: leading parameters are mandatory, trailing parameters are optional. Once a parameter specified, its value is permanently stored in the file "WG.CNF". All parameters OK, you may invoke the Wave- Gazer with only the command name. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 15 HELP: The WaveGazer starts halfway up and then locks up with black or other strange colored menu bars! This may occur if your configuration file "WG.CNF" is corrupted or if you start a new release of the Wave- Gazer, where the format of this file has changed. De- lete the file "WG.CNF" and restart the WaveGazer again. Upon exit, a new file "WG.CNF" will be created and everything will be OK, after you followed the steps described in the next chapter again. 5.3 Tell The WaveGazer about your PC's speed When you start the WaveGazer for the first time, it tries to adapt itself to the speed of your PC, calibrating the co munication time- m outs. If the receiver does respond, the time-out value will be per- manently stored in the configuration file and on all subsequent in- vocations, the calibration isn't required anymore. If ever you start up the WaveGazer with a new config file, this step will be executed again. Proceed as follows if the WaveGazer won't adapt itself to your com- puter: Hit to have the receiver attached / detached several times. You should see the "remote" led on the receiver going on and off. Look at the status line, probably the values read back from the receiver are completely wrong. Leave the receiver in the "attached" state and start up the Band- scan feature. Load a scan from disk ("HELLO.SCN" comes with the distribution). Click in the Bandscan window and drag the marker around. The receiver should now reflect the state indicated on the computer display. If no proceed the preceding steps again. If communication from PC to receiver is OK, select the menu op- tion "Control -> Calibrate" and wait some seconds for the popup- box to come up. Acknowledge and exit the WaveGazer. This stores a time-out value in the file "WG.CNF" and so it will be read on the next invocation of the software. Here, everything should be OK., test it by re-invoking the Wave- Gazer. The status line should now display the actual receiver state. Eventually, if the clocks on the RX and the PC differ more than 3 minutes (after substraction of the defined time differential), you may choose to synchronize either's clock to the other's. If you fail to calibrate the time-outs, the WaveGazer will either be unable to read back values from the receiver, or it will run June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 16 very slowly if no communication is established between the PC and the receiver. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 17 6. General Usage 6.1 Windows The window system is very coarse (see chap 6.7 Restrictions). If a window is opened, it saves the graphic covered by itself in a file, which will be read for redrawing the screen if the window will be closed. That is why the environment variable "WG_SWP"needs to be defined. (see chap. 5. Installation) To close a window, press the button on top of the frame, the one that displays the name of the window. To close the topmost window using the keyboard, hit the spacebar. 6.2 Menus The menus are implemented as you are used to from other applica- tions, clicking is very intuitive. To access the menu using key- strokes, press to have the last pulled down menu pulled down, and then use the arrow keys to stroll through the menu items. You also may access the menus directly using -something key- strokes: -C pulls down the "Control" menu -R pulls down the "Receiver" menu -S pulls down the "Scanning" menu -D pulls down the "Database" menu -L pulls down the "Logbook" menu -U pulls down the "Customize" menu -A pulls down the "About..." menu 6.3 Menu Options: The "Control" menu has 4 options: "Exit" To quit the WaveGazer "Get Memory" To see how much unallocated memory remains. Don't be afraid when the button tells you that it needs more memory: This is hardcoded to express my per- sonal frustration about DOS's 20 bit addressing mode ;-) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 18 "Calibrate" To calibrate the communication parameters "Get Time Diff." To display the time differences the PC's and re- ceiver's clocks have respective to UTC (in minutes) The "Receiver" menu has 4 options: "Control" To start the "Receiver Control" window "Memory Editor" To start the "Memory Editor" "Memory Viewer" To start the "Memory Viewer" "Attach"/"Detach"To establish or loose connection to the receiver The "Scanning" menu has 2 options: "Bandscan" To start the "Bandscan" window "Recording" To start the unattended recording feature The "Database" menu has 5 options: "Open Database" To open a database "Close Database" To close the currently open database "Open DB Window" To open the "Database" window "Search" To open the "Search" window and the "Database" win- dow if not already opened. "Add Item" To open the "Add A Record" window and a database, if none opened at the moment. "Delete" To delete all files making up a database. The "Logbook" menu has 5 options: "Open Logbook" To open a logbook "Close Logbook" To close the currently open logbook "Open LOG Window"To open the "Database" window "Search" To open the "Search" window and the "Database" win- dow if not already opened. "Logging..." To open the "Logging..." window and a logbook, if none opened at the moment. "Delete" To delete all files making up a logbook. The "Customize" menu has 4 options: June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 19 "Colors" To open the "Customize Color" dialogbox "Printer" To open a dialogbox used to enter the escape se- quences respective to your printer. "Save Settings" To save the current settings to disk file "Read Settings" To update the current settings with data from disk The "About..." menu has 2 options "WaveGazer" To get information about the current version of the WaveGazer "The Author" To get information about me, my address, e.g... 6.4 Textfields: The textfields may be input/output or output only. If textfields are input/output, they may be edited by means of usual editor com- mands (arrow keys, , , etc.). Overstrike mode is not available and you cannot enter a string longer than the length of the textfield. Hitting terminates the input, while hitting transfers the input focus to the next input field in the chain. Clicking in a field transfers input focus in this field, at the position in the string where clicked. Double-clicking in a field erases the field entirely. 6.5 Popupboxes All popupboxes can be accessed using either the mouse or the key- board. While mouse operation is straight forward, keyboard opera- tion needs some explanation. To get a popupbox disappear, refusing the suggested option, the equivalent of pressing the "Cancel" button, hit key To acknowledge the suggested option in a one button box, hit the key If more than one option to choose from, hit the first letter of the button label to accept this option. Positive options are generally mapped to while the nega- tion generally is mapped to June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 20 6.6 File Selection Boxes File selection boxes may display up to 6 filenames to choose from. If more than 6 files match the search criteria, you may scroll the tiny display using either the keyboard (see later) or the triangu- lar buttons right-hand of the filename display. Double-clicking a filename selects the filename directly, while you would need to hit the second button explicitly if you clicked the name only once. Use the following keystrokes to manipulate file selection boxes from the keyboard: : To re-scan the directory, equivalent to "find" button : To accept the selected filename or the one put in the textline holding the template : To close the file selection box, equivalent to "cancel" button : To select a file i: To have input focus on the textfield /: To page up or down June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 21 6.7 Restrictions The WaveGazer has been built on a user interface tool-kit I devel- oped on my own, as a programming exercise. Whereas most of the "widgets" (X11?) are rather well implemented, there are some draw- backs you need to know if you use the WaveGazer. The windows cannot change position and size! Hidden windows cannot be made visible (put on top of the stack) without closing the windows hiding them e tirely or partially. n In the file selection box, the files are not sorted alphabeti- cally, rather they appear in sequence as they are on the disk drive. I should correct this in a future release The accelerator keys (for keyboard operation) are case sensitive. So they won't work (or work in unexpected manner) if you have the caps-lock key activated! June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 22 7. General Receiver Control At any time, you may control all computer controllable features from the keyboard of the PC, and you may monitor the current re- ceiver status in the status line at the bottom of the display. This control is implemented using some keystrokes on the function key row and on the numerical keypad. Controllable features: Reception mode (modulation) key: IF filter key: Automatic gain control AGC key: 20 dB attenuator key: Preselector bypass key: Noiseblankers key: Freq. step for tuning up/down 7/1 key: Frequency up/down key:6/4 Bandwidth control up/down key: <+>/<-> Passband shift left/right /<*> key: These keys should be easy to retain (look at the order of the items in the status line) and are accessible all the time the computer has the connection to the receiver established. The status line is meant to always reflect the actual state of the receiver, except if the receiver is disconnected and tuned manu- ally. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 23 8. Receiver Control Window The receiver control window allows you to control the receiver nearly completely from the computer. All functions may be accessed, except the analogous tuning: AF gain RF gain Noiseblanker depth Notch filter The squelch level This window is maybe not very useful, since tuning the receiver di- rectly may be more convenient. 8.1 Controllable Features The -20 dB attenuator The preselector circuit bypass The noiseblankers (on/off of either one) The AGC time constant The IF-filter The frequency, via keyboard and via the VFO knob The tuning steps (not the ones of the receiver itself!) The reception mode (modulation) The passband shift The variable bandwidth 8.2 Attaching / Detaching The Receiver To The PC In the middle of the receiver control window, there is a toggle button with associated textfield. When the window is called, the textfield displays "Computer", what means that the receiver is at- tached to the PC. Clicking in the toggle button makes the textfield display "Manual" and unlocks the receiver, enabling you to manipu- late it manually! June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 24 Keep in mind, that every time you attach the receiver to the PC, the PC's display will be updated with the values found on the NRD. The WaveGazer records all possible changes on the receiver inter- nally; so, even if the receiver control window is not displayed, the program knows about the receiver's state. In the menu called "Receiver" you find an option called either "attach" or "detach". Use this option to attach or detach the re- ceiver without passing through the receiver control window. 8.3 Operation The toggle button labeled "-20 dB" switches the attenuator on the receiver. The toggle button called "Bypass" switches the front end tuning circuit on the NRD. The 535's user manual tells you, that this fea- ture should only be used under difficult reception conditions. There is no way to inquire the state of the bypass from the com- puter, so don't be puzzled if the PC display does not match the re- ceiver's state in that matter! The toggles labeled "Noiseblanker" switch the two noiseblankers on and off. The depth of the blanking has to be tuned manually on the radio. The AGC time constant can be switched with the radiobutton labeled AGC (you might have found this one by your own, ...) The filter used is switched with the buttons labeled "Filter". Every time you switch filters, the textfield to the right of the scrollbar called "Bandwidth" will display the name of the se- lected filter, e.g. "narr" for the narrow filter. If this textfield displays such text instead of a numeric value, then the bandwidth control feature is off! You may set the reception frequency in two different ways: With the VFO knob or directly via keyboard by editing the frequency display. Using the VFO knob may be not so handy, it requires some get used to. All you have to do is clicking in the red button on the knob and drag it (mouse still pressed) to the position you want. That means you need to execute some circular movements with the mouse. Try it, and you will agree that manual tuning is more comfortable yet. If you need to do some very fine tuning, this feature could be useful, since it is more precise than the NRD's well balanced tun- ing knob. In addition, the frequency display shows the very exact frequency, the 1 Hz position is displayed. This display is in fact an editable textfield. Click in it, the cursor will blink and you may enter the June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 25 desired frequency. Enter the frequency in kHz, using a dot or a comma as the decimal point. Once the frequency entered, click on the red button on the VFO (or double on the keyboard), and the radio will be tuned to this frequency. In the VFO knob, there is a feature that allows you to select the tuning steps used for VFO tuning. (these are steps employed inter- nally by the WaveGazer, these are not the tuning steps of the re- ceiver...!) Clicking in the up or down buttons alters the step to the next value from the sequence of 1, 10, 100, 1000, 5000 and 10000 Hz. When the receiver control window is called, this value is set to the last selected value. Be aware that if you switch this value up, the display and the re- ceiver will align their current frequency to the next lower value on this boundary. (e.g., switching from 10 Hz to 100 Hz will switch the radio to 7145.500 kHz if before it was tuned to 7145.560 kHz). The reception mode may be switched with the radiobutton called "Mode", as you would do it on the NRD itself. A scrollbar labeled "Bandwidth" allows you to vary the bandwidth of the used filter from 500 to 5500 Hz, provided you own a 'new' NRD 535, which is equipped with the new BWC feature. In the textfield to the right of the scrollbar, the actual band- width is displayed. From 500 up to 2100 Hz, the "int" filter is used, from 2100 to 5500 Hz, the "wide" one. (This might present some difficulties if the factory installed filters have been changed on your receiver) Filter switching is done automatically, but you will hear a differ- ence in the audio. If a filter is directly chosen via the "Filter" buttons, the vari- able bandwidth control is switched off, as you may verify on the receiver's display. The other scrollbar, labeled "Passband" is used to control the passband shift, the associated textfield shows its actual value. 8.4 Keystrokes a: Toggles the attenuator B/b: Varies filter bandwidth (larger/smaller) c: Toggles the computer or manual interface f: Selects the filter (cyclic) g: Selects the AGC setting (cyclic) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 26 h: Input of frequency (think of 'hertz'), double to set receiver to this frequency I/i: Rises/lowers the VFO's increment m: Selects the mode (cyclic) N/n: Toggles either noiseblanker 1 or 2 p: Toggles front end bypass S/s: Varies passband shift (up/down) V/v: Rises/lowers the frequency of RX June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 27 9. The Memory Editor The "Memory Editor" is used to manage the 535's 200 memory chan- nels. On startup of the WaveGazer, the memory channels are read from the receiver to the computer's memory, which may take some seconds, but it is done in the background, that means invisible for you. (You may notice it only if you start the Memory Editor or the Memory Viewer shortly after program startup.) 9.1 Description Manage all 200 memory channels, one by one or all together Store user defined settings in a memory channel Dump the current receiver settings in a memory channel Erase memory channels Tune receiver to a selected memory channel Save all 200 memory channels to a disk file Load 200 memory channels from a disk file 9.2 Operation The Memory Editor consists mainly of two zones: One displaying the numbers of all 200 memory channels and one showing the contents of the selected channel. The large area displaying the numbers is "clickable" with the mouse. It displays the numbers of all non-vacant channels, that means all channels containing a valid definition. The characteristics of the currently selected channel are displayed in the smaller area to the right of the main display. Double-clicking a channel tunes the receiver to it. Clicking in one channel and dragging the mouse with hold down in another, means moving the contents of the first channel into the other (The original channel will be erased). If the target channel is not empty, a warning box will be displayed. The buttons allow you to further manage the memory channels: The one labeled "Define" loads the currently selected channel with the characteristics in the editor box. This allows you to change a channel manually. To do this, select a channel in the June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 28 large grid, then fill in the settings in the smaller box and click the "Define" button Clicking "Tune" tunes the NRD to the selected memory channel (the same as double-clicking a channel number.) "Load" and "Save" are used to load all channels from a file or to dump them in a file for later reloading. This allows you to have a virtually unlimited number of memories. The "Clear" button erases the currently selected memory channel "Print" prints out all channels, their number and settings. This is not yet implemented, (sorry) "SetRX" is used to load the selected channel with the current re- ceiver settings. "Update" allows you to re-read the 200 channels from the re- ceiver, in case something went wrong at any time (e.g. receiver not attached at program startup). The smaller box is to edit one channel at a time. Of course, you cannot change the channel number, this fields displays the number of the selected channel. 9.3 Keystrokes arrow-keys: To move in the grid containing the memory numbers a: To toggle attenuator toggle in editor f: To cycle filter settings in editor g: To cycle AGC settings in editor i: Start input in frequency field in editor l: To load a memory file from disk m: To cycle mode setting in editor p: Print (not yet implemented) r: To dump the current receiver settings in the se- lected memory channel s: Save receiver memory to disk file t: Tune receiver to selected channel u: Update display from receiver June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 29 : Set selected channel with settings from editor : Clear selected memory channel June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 30 10. The Memory Viewer 10.1 Operation The Memory Viewer is most likely used in conjunction with the Mem- ory Editor. As its name implies, it only serves to view the memory channels. It allows you to view all the memory channels with their contents, 33 at a time. The scrollbar permits you to adjust the desired range of channel numbers. If used with the Memory Editor, you may prefer selecting a channel using the Memory Viewer, there is a certain amount of interaction between these two windows: Channels selected in the Memory Viewer are also selected in the Memory Editor Upon invocation, the Memory Viewer displays the contents of the channel numbers around the one selected in the Memory Editor, or channel numbers from zero if the Memory Editor is not present. Double-clicking on a line displaying a channel tunes the radio to this channel, even if the channel is vacant. 10.2 Keystrokes /: page up/down 8/2: select channel, (scroll) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 31 11. The Bandscan This exciting feature allows you to scan bands in 555 steps (Why 555 steps? It is because the window, once designed had 555 steps to go...!). Of course, you also can define less than these 555 steps but this odd number is the maximum number of steps available! 11.1 Description Scan from a fixed start frequency to a fixed stop frequency, the computer calculates the step. Scan from a fixed start frequency using a fixed step, the computer calculates the end frequency. Scan from a fixed start frequency, using a fixed step, to a fixed end frequency, provided the step is small enough to allow the end frequency to be on the display! (if start and stop frequency are defined as well as the step, the step always has priority over the end frequency, in case the step would be too big to allow the end frequency being on the display!) Monitor one single frequency over time (for observing fading) Select bands to be scanned from a list of user defined bands Scans may consist of only one sweep (a sweep being one pass from start to the end) or of a undefined number of sweeps, if the toggle "Endless" is activated. A running scan may always be stopped with the "Stop" button and later resumed with the "Resume" button. The "Endless" toggle may be toggled every time, its state is checked at the end of the current sweep. (that means, a previously endless scan will end at the end of its current sweep, if the state of the toggle has been changed.) In the case of an endless scan, the toggles labeled "Current" and "Average" allow you to select which values the display should show. The average value is the one taken over all previous sweeps! A whole scan may be saved in a file ("Save"), storing also the cur- rent scan's position. That means, a stored scan may be resumed af- ter being reloaded from disk! Use the "Load" button to reload a saved scan Define the number of samples of a signal at a given frequency taken with the scrollbar labeled "Samples". June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 32 Allow the AGC to settle during a time period defined with the other scrollbar, the one labeled "AGC Settle Time". This does not affect the AGC decay time of the receiver, it only is a value in microsec- onds, the WaveGazer waits before it samples the S-meter on the next frequency. Finally, the whole display may be cleared by means of the "Clear" button! 11.2 Operation The textfields displaying "Bandclass" and "Band" are used to se- lect a pre-defined band for scanning. The first is used to select a certain class of bands, e.g. 'Domestic Broadcast', 'Interna- tional Broadcast', 'Marine Coast Stations' and so on; while the second is used to select a particular band in this bandclass. (e.g. the 49 meter band). As soon as you selected a band, its limits and eventual a scan step will be displayed in the two textfields to the left and right of the buttons. (The step in the field labeled "Step"). For further information about how to define these pre-defined bands, see chap. 12, "The Pre-defined Bands." Next you see a scrollbar labeled "nr. Samples". Use this scroll- bar is to fix the number of times the S-meter should be sampled for one scan step. For fast scans select the minimum (1), but for precise scans select a higher number. The scrollbar labeled "AGC settle" serves to adjust the time in microseconds the scan will wait before stepping to the next fre- quency. Every AGC unit in every receiver has some decay time, of- ten just called 'fast' and 'slow'. The time you may adjust using this scrollbar is not related to this decay time, rather it is the time you will allow the AGC circuitry to settle before sam- pling the next frequency. This is also useful for precise scans, allow more time than for fast scans. You will see that low values in this field will result in asymme ric graphs. Do as you feel! t The following textfield indicates the step in Hz the scanner will step further. You may fill in this field interactively, provided you supply a valid value. The field labeled "Freq" is output only, it indicates the fre- quency the receiver is tuned to. The togglebutton called "Endless" is to indicate if you want to stop at the end of the running scan or if the scanner should run endlessly. Toggles called "Average" and "Current" determine which value is displayed, the average value for a frequency and/or the value June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 33 taken in the current sweep. Of course, for 1-sweep-scans, both values are the same. The value represented as a solid line is the average value over all sweeps, the dots show the last value read. In the lower row of controls, we have the two textfields, one left and one right. The right one holds the start frequency while the other holds the end frequency of the scan. These fields can be edited, they will be read at the beginning or on resuming of a scan. The first button ("Start") is to start a scan at the start fre- quency. After clicking the button, the scanner remains for 1 sec- ond on the start-frequency to allow the AGC to settle, before the real scanning work is started. After the start of a scan, you may click in the graph, the screen will display a marker and the re- ceiver will be set to the pointed frequency. The "Stop" button is (of course) to stop the running scan. A stopped scan can be resumed with the "Resume" button or restarted with "Start". The buttons called "Save" and "Load" serve to store a scan in a file or to reload one on the display. A reloaded scan may be re- sumed where it has been stopped. The "Clear" button is to erase the display. Sorry for the slow- ness. Once a scan graph begun or displayed, you can click and drag with the mouse in the display and the receiver will be tuned to the pointed frequency. I think this can be very handy to monitor activ- ity on a certain band, you do not need to remember frequencies but the shape of the peaks drawn on the screen... Most control features are active during a scan, so you can dynami- cally change the number of samples, the AGC settle time and toggle the toggle buttons. However, you cannot change the start and end frequencies and the step. Moreover, activating some control functions will stop the running scan: selecting a new band, restarting a scan and sav- ing/redisplaying or clearing a scan. The Receiver Control window may be active during a scan, so you can change the current receiver setting easily. The "Bandscan" feature may also be used to visualize the character- istics of the IF-filter used: just scan a small portion of a the spectrum, lets say around a stable carrier somewhere, and choose a precise scan. The graphs drawn on the screen show approximately the Q-factor and the width of the filters. How to interpret this, is up to you ...;-) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 34 In general, best results are obtained with a small filter and a fast AGC decay time. Unfortunately, the 'fast' position on the NRD is still not fast enough to have the fast scan graphs look nicely... If you want to visualize fading of an only one transmission, just fill in the field for the start frequency with the frequency you want to monitor and leave the fields for end-frequency and step blank. Hit the "Start" button and the graph will show the fading. I'm sure you will soon find your own scanning preferences. 11.3 Keystrokes -a: Toggles "Average" toggle -c: Toggles "Current" toggle -e: Toggles "Endless" toggle -i: Starts textfield input in "Step" field -g: Starts scanning (as button "start", think of 'go') -l: Loads a file from disk -r: Resumes stopped scanning -s: Saves a file to disk L/l: Rises/lowers the sample number T/t: Rises/lowers the AGC settle time : Clears the display : Stops scanning June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 35 12. The Pre-defined Bands (In this chapter, a feature called "Channelscan" is mentioned. this is something I'm currently working on, but that is not yet ready so don't worry about it so far.) The Bandscan and Channelscan windows contain both a feature to re- call pre-defined bands with their limits and scansteps. In the di- rectory pointed by the environment variable "WG_FIL" is a file called "BANDS.DEF" which is a formatted text file. This chapter de- scribes the format of this text file. 12.1 Theory You can have two kinds of machine readable lines in it: One to de- fine a band class and one to define a band in the previously de- fined band class. The order of the lines is the same in which they will be displayed in the selection widgets, so it can be considered as important. To define a new class, e.g. Tropical Broadcast, a line beginning with "cl" and a class name must be inserted. e.g.: cl Broadcasting or cl Tropical_Bands Notice that the name must be one word (e.g. no spaces), so '_' (underscore) signs may be used to replace spaces. (I know this is not nice, but it is easier to program...) All following lines beginning with "bd" are to define a band in this class. The format is more complicated than the one of the classes: bd start end chstep chnr scstep name where "start" stands for the start frequency in kHz, "end" for the end frequency in kHz and "chstep" for the channel spacing in kHz. "chnr" holds an eventual channel number (can be used e.g. on CB or marine bands, where channels are numbered and evenly spaced), "scstep" is the step the bandscanner will employ (in Hz), it is not used in the channel scanner. Of these fields, only "bd","start'" and "name" are really manda- tory. others can be replaced by an asterisk (*) and so they will be ignored. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 36 For bands used in the bandscanner, "chstep" and "chnr" are not used, and either "scstep" or "end" are o tional. p Bands used in the channel scanner do not need the "scstep" field and either "end" or "chstep" are optional. The "chnr" field can be used in the channelscanner, but is not re- quired. 12.2 Examples Some examples of lines defining bands: bd 5950 6200 5 * * 49_meter This line defines the 49-meter band for use in both the band- and the channel scanner. In the bandscanner, the scan step ("scstep") will be calculated at the start of the scan and will certainly be something weird and odd. ((6200-5950) / 555 = 450 Hz). To have the scan step look better, you may force it to 500 Hz in the line: bd 5950 6200 5 * 500 49_meter For marine bands, a line may look like this: bd 8704 8815 3 800 200 8_MHz This line defined the 8_MHz coast stations band, which spreads from 8707 to 8812 kHz, with channels numbered from 801 onwards. "start" has the value of 8704, which is the real start freq. of this band minus the channel spacing (8707 -3). This is to prevent that the first channel never will be scanned. So the channel number ("chnr") field must contain the lowest channel number - 1 = 800. The step used by the bandscanner is 200 Hz. It is important to use scansteps that allow you to point the exact frequency of a trans- mission, especially if SSB transmission will be tuned! The step used in the channelscanner is 3 kHz, which is the real spacing in the marine bands. "bd" lines following a "cl" line define all members of the class defined by this "cl" line. Lines not beginning with either "cl" or "bd" are ignored, so feel free to add comments to the file. You may have a maximum of 16 classes containing each a maximum of 16 bands. (I think this is enough...) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 37 13. Automatic Recording 13.1 Features This window allows you to schedule up to eight transmissions you don't want to miss or want to record. The timer relay on the '535 will be switched at a given times, with the receiver tuned to the wanted frequencies. Define from one to eight transmissions for recording Switches receiver off, during long waiting periods Allows user defined period for receiver preheating User may switch on/off receiver from computer (is this really useful?) User may switch on/off tape (time relay) from computer Upon start of recording, eventual user errors are flagged and signaled. User definitions are saved for later re-use. (in file "RECORD.DAT") 13.2 Operation The input fields are organized in lines and columns. One line rep- resents one scheduled transmission recording. The column labeled "Mem." holds the memory channel which will be selected during re- cording; the two following hold the start and the end time of the recording. You do not need to respect a particular order of these entries; upon start, the software arranges the display for you, in the way that all lines are sorted, with the start-time as sort key. Before, the WaveGazer checks if a line is incomplete, if two or more lines do have overlapping times or if more than one line has an end-time that is earlier than the start-time. It is perfectly legal to have one line holding a start-time which is later than the end-time: The WaveGazer assumes that this is a transmission spanning midnight, so this line will be the last listed in the sorted columns. A small arrow pointing to the line number shows which line cur- rently is processed, while the status field displays the action the recorder is doing: June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 38 "inactive" "Start" button has not yet been pressed to go in either waiting, tuning, preheating or recording "waiting" Wait for the receiver to switch on for preheating "tuning" Tune the switched on receiver to the desired chan- nel (displayed during a very short time) "preheating" Wait for recorder to switch on, while receiver is already switched on. "recording" Receiver and recorder are switched on, the latter recording if you set it up well... Pressing the "Start" button activates the format checking of the input fields; and then, if all fields OK, the software goes in a loop comparing regularly the current time to the times in the dif- ferent fields, to eventually switch on or off the connected de- vices. "Stop" may be pressed anytime. This terminates the previously en- tered loop and switches the tape off (if not already done) and the receiver back on if it was switched off. The scrollbar labeled "Preheat" is used to define the period in minutes used to warm up the receiver to achieve maximum stability. 13.3 Keystrokes P/p: Rise/lower the preheat time r: Switches receiver on/off s: Starts recording feature (not recording itself, but the timer function...) t: Switches timer relay on/off : Stops the recording feature June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 39 14. The Database 14.1 Concepts At any given time you may have no more than one database open, but the number of databases present on the hard disk is limited only by the disk space. The number of entries in a database is also unlim- ited, whenever the performance will decrease using larger data- bases. The limiting factors for the size are: Disk space Memory CPU performance A database consists of 4 files: "dbname.db": The database itself "dbname.bci": The index for broadcaster name "dbname.fri": The index for frequency "dbmame.tmi": The index for time Opening a database is done using the respective menu option: "Database->Open Database" To open a database It is also possible to open a database using the "Open" button in the database window, but you then need to choose if you want to open a database or a logbook. If you desire to open a logbook as a database, proceed as for open- ing a database, change the "*.db" template in the file selection box to "*.lb", click the "Find" button and choose the logbook you want to open. 14.2 Usage Of Databases A database may hold a database or a logbook. A database entry consists of: Broadcaster name, frequency, start time, end-time, country, language, relay/transmitter site, a com- ment and all storable receiver settings. Sort records after sortkeys: Broadcaster, Time, Frequency June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 40 Define search criteria based on broadcaster name (case insensi- tive, wildcarding), time, country and la guage. n Frequency search criteria may be equal-given-frequency, smaller- than-given-frequency, greater-than-given-fr quency or between- e two-given-frequencies. If a record is added, all possible receiver settings may be fetched in the record immediately, to speed up logging. All the above features are general features, interfaced through the windows called "Database" and "Search'". So please refer to the documentation for these windows for further information. 14.3 Creating a new Database To create a new database (one that does not yet exist), click in menu "Database->Open Database", to have the file selection box dis- played. In this box, fill in the name of the database you want to open and click "Open". The new database with the desired name will be created and opened for you. (Please respect DOS's file naming convention...) 14.4 Tracking Mode An important feature is called "Tracking Mode" which allows the user to tune the receiver manually while the database is looked up for records matching the current receiver frequency. For more in- formation about this feature, please refer to chapter 16. 14.5 Database Cache The WaveGazer keeps up to 27 pages of 20 database records in a lo- cal cache and always tries to keep the currently needed portion of the database in the cache. Of course, this will not always be the case, so you sometimes will feel the application slow down while bringing the cache up-to-date. The "Database" window shows in its status line the state of the cache; if it is displaying strings different from "all records cached", "cache 100% filled" or "End of database reached", the cache is being updated. Remember: "Share" must be installed for database use June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 41 15. The Logbook 15.1 Concepts In parallel to a database, a logbook may be opened. As for data- bases, only one logbook may be kept open at a given time. If you choose to open a logbook as a database, no second logbook may be opened! If both, logbook and database are open, the menu option "Database->Add Entry" will add an entry to the database while the option "Logbook->Logging..." adds one to the logbook. A logbook consists of 4 files: "lbname.lb": the logbook itself "lbname.bcl": the index for broadcaster name "lbname.frl": the index for frequency "lbname.tml": the index for time Opening a logbook is done using the respective menu option: "Logbook->Open Logbook" To open a logbook It is also possible to open a logbook using the "Open" button in the database window, but you then need to choose if you want to open a database or a logbook. 15.2 Usage Of Logbooks A logbook entry consists of: Broadcaster name, frequency, date, time, country, language, relay/transmitter site, SINPO code, a comment and all storable receiver settings. If a record is added, all possible receiver settings may be fetched in the record immediately, to speed up logging. The above features are general features, interfaced through the windows called "Database" and "Search". So please refer to the documentation for these windows for further information. 15.3 Creating a new Logbook To create a new logbook (one that does not yet exist), click in menu "Logbook->Open Logbook", to have the file selection box dis- played. In this box, fill in the name of the database you want to open and click "Open". The new logbook with the desired name will June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 42 be created and opened for you. (Please respect DOS's file naming convention...) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 43 16. The Database Window 16.1 Description The database window displays the database entries on the screen. You may view the entries, tune the receiver to a selected entry, print them out and delete or edit entries. A function also allows you to add entries intera tively. c You may: View 20 entries at a time and scroll up or down, page per page Select an entry for editing, tuning, printing or deletion Print out all entries or on-screen entries only, in either short or complete format Tune the receiver immediately to a selected entry Open/close databases or logbooks Load all records which correspond to a user defined search crite- ria to the receivers memory, and/or print out a list of these en- tries. Load your receiver's memory and have an up-to-date list of the memory occupation! Load all records corresponding to the search criteria to a file which can be loaded to the receiver's memories later. Activate the "Tracking Mode". (see chap. 16.) Read out the actual state of the cache See the name of the open database. 16.2 Operation The 'window in the window' is a mouse sensitive area and will dis- play the database entries. The "Database" window does not work without the "Search" window and vice versa, so some reference will be made to the search window. To have the records of an open database displayed, click the "Search" button in the "Search" window. All records matching the search criteria (see "Search" window...) will be displayed, top down. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 44 If more than one screen full should be displayed, the buttons la- beled "prev Pg" and "next Pg" can be used to page up and down. Records are selected by clicking. Selected records can be: Deleted, by clicking on the "delete" button Edited, by pressing the "edit" button (see chap. 17., Adding / Editing a record) Tuned, which means the settings found in the selected record will be dumped to the receiver. Double-clicking a record also tunes the receiver to the selected record. Pressing the "Print" button displays a popup box asking whether you want to print all records corresponding to the search criteria or just the ones displayed on the screen. Further, you may choose the format of the print: If short or complete format. Short format re- quires a carriage width of 80 characters, while the complete format requires 132 characters. (see the chapter about printer customiza- tion and the users manual of your printer on how to get it spit out these formats...) The toggle button labeled "Tracking Mode" activates the tracking mode. The receiver will be unlocked and manually tunable, while still linked to the PC. The software will follow all changes ap- plied to the receiver and constantly update the RX status line. See the next chapter for more information about tracking mode opera- tion. The textline situated just over the button row should always show the status of the database cache. 16.3 Keystrokes a: Adds a record (opens "add a record" or "Logging..." window) c: Closes the open database or logbook e: Edits the selected record l: Pops up the memory loader dialogbox. (see chapter 15.4) m: Activates tracking mode o: Opens a new database (closes the previously opened one) June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 45 p: Print t: Tunes receiver to the selected entry : Deletes the currently selected entry : Backwards one page : Forward one page : To select the entries 16.4 Loading Database Entries To Memory The button labeled "Load RX" calls a little dialog box, which al- lows you to load database records matching the search criteria in the receivers memory. You may choose to: Load the records matching the search criteria in receiver memory, starting at a defined channel number and ending at a defined channel number. If less records found than channels foreseen for writing, the remaining channels will be left unchanged. If more records found than channels available, not all records will be loaded. Write the found records to a file, which can be reloaded later into receiver's memory Print out a list of all memory channels, their number and de- scription. Might be useful for a DXpedidion or so... This dialogbox disappears automatically if all the work is done 16.5 Keystrokes For Memory Loader Window i: Get input focus on first textfield in window, use to move further l: Toggles "Load To Memory" toggle p: Toggles "Print" toggle s: Toggles "Save To File" toggle : Equivalent to hit "Load" button : Equivalent to hit "Cancel" button June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 46 17. Tracking Mode 17.1 Purpose The so called tracking mode lets the user tune the receiver as if it were not connected to the computer, whereas the PC continually reads the receiver's status and tries to find a match in the cur- rently open database. Since you rarely will be tuned to the exact frequency of a database entry, the WaveGazer highlights all records containing a frequency in between two values, which are calculated as receiver's freq. +/- threshold. The value of the threshold value is user configurable between 0 and 6000 Hz. It is perfectly possible to have more than one entry highlighted at once, depending on how many records are registered for the same frequency and on how big the threshold value is set. 17.2 Operation Activate the tracking mode by toggling the foreseen toggle in the "Database" window. A tiny window will pop up (If not already here) and show you a scrollbar which serves to adjust the threshold value. You may alter this value at any time! To really get the WaveGazer in tracking mode, some conditions need to be met: A database needs to be opened The database needs to contain valid records The database needs to be sorted for frequency The database needs to be cached entirely or the cache needs to be entirely filled. If one of these criteria is not met, a popupbox will appear, try- ing to explain why no go... To leave tracking mode, several methods may be successful: Toggle the toggle button back (you guessed it!) Close the tiny window labeled "Tracking Mode" June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 47 Hit the "Search" button in the "Search" window (re-display the database) Page up or down in the display, using the / buttons or keys. Open any Window that partially or entirely hides the "Database" window. Close the "Database" window While in tracking mode, you still may double-click a displayed rec- ord to dump its settings to the receiver's VFO. The function of the toggles "Match Mode" and "Match Time" are not yet implemented, which means that all entries matching a certain frequency are highlighted, regardless of other data in the records. 17.3 Keystrokes -m: Toggles "Match Mode" -s: Toggles "Match Time" : Rises / lowers the tolerance value June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 48 18. Search Window 18.1 Concepts The "Search" window is used in conjunction with the "Database" win- dow, it cannot be used without it. This window is mainly to define the search criteria and to initiate database searching. The search criteria may contain: The broadcaster's name, with wildcards at the beginning and the end of the string Frequency to be matched exactly Frequency to be smaller or greater than Two frequencies to be in between Two times (to be in between) A known language A country code (ITU abbreviation) All these criteria may be combined, if they are not exclusive as the different modes for the frequency are. The search may be sorted based on three search keys: Broadcasters name Frequency (Start) Time 18.2 Operation To start searching, the database window must be active, that means on the screen and not partially hidden by another window. Upon pressing the "search" button, the WaveGazer begins displaying the found records in the database window. In case you only want to select some records matching a certain criteria, you will need to fill in the textfields in the search window: The broadcaster name may begin and end with an asterisk, inter- preted as zero-to-n character wildcards. Asterisks in the middle of the word are interpreted as such. The broadcaster name is compared case insensitive to the one in the record, so case is not an issue. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 49 The frequency may be used in different ways as criteria. If the selected button in the button line below the fields for the frequency is "=f1", only records matching exactly the fre- quency labeled "Freq. 1" are selected. This will not be useful very often. You rather will use the selection ">f1" which selects all rec- ords with a frequency higher than the one in the "Freq. 1" field. For all with frequency lower than the one in this field, use the "f2". This mode selects all records whose frequency is between these two values. Be sure to define "Freq. 2" and to define it larger than "Freq. 1". Searching for records corresponding to a given time is done differ- ent depending on if you are searching a database or in a logbook: For databases, define one time: the start time only. The search algorithm will select all records whose start time falls before the given time and whose end time falls after it. For logbooks, you need to specify the start and the end time, the WaveGazer will select all logs logged in between these two times. If you use the language or the country as a search criteria, you must supply the exact string (except for case) in the correspond- ing fields. If no field is filled in, all records will be se- lected, as the search criteria is null. The "Relay" field is not used... Pressing the "Reset" button will erase all fields. Pressing the "Search" button initiates searching through the data- base. 18.3 Keystrokes f: Selects frequency search mode i: Starts textfield input in broadcaster field k: Selects the sort key r: Reset June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 50 s: Search June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 51 19. Adding / Editing A Record 19.1 Concepts This window is fill-in-form to define a record. It is also used to edit an existing record. The "add" functionality is called from ei- ther a menu option or the database window, while the "edit" func- tion is called only from the database window. The fields you need to fill in are: The broadcasters name The start and end time for database entries or just one time for logbook entries The language The country code (ITU) The SINPO code in case of a logbook entry The date in case of a logbook entry All storable receiver settings Optional fields comprise: The relay / transmitter site A comment 19.2 Operation Pressing the button labeled "From RX" tells the WaveGazer to fetch the current receiver settings and update the display with it: Time Date (if logbook; from PC) Frequency All receiver settings The button called "Reset" erases all fields for new fill in. There is a small toggle button called "Cnv Brc" at the bottom of the window. You may see that when you add a record, the format of the fields change when you hit the "add" button. This is because some internal format checking and conversion is done, to check if a June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 52 value is out of range and to provide a more or less uniform look of the records, once added. If the toggle mentioned above is active, the broadcaster's name will be converted, capitalized. This is normally adequate, e.g. if you write 'swiSS radio INTerna- tional' this will be converted to 'Swiss Radio International'. But if you are lazy, and SRI is enough for you, 'SRI' will be converted to 'Sri', which is as badly readable as 'Bbc'. In these and similar cases, be sure the toggle is deactivated before adding the record. To finally add the record to the database, hit the "add" button. (who guessed?). Be careful: Hitting the "add" button more than once on the same entry will result in multiple entries of the same type. No checking is performed on that! 19.3 Editing A Record Similar thoughts if you edit a record: Editing a record opens the "Add A Record" window with already filled in fields. These fields may be modified (or not), and the modified entry will be added, af- ter the original entry has been r moved from the database. e So this "add" did not actually add the record but exchanged one for another. If now you hit "add" again, the record in the window will be added again, but no record will be removed anymore. In this case you added one more record, probably one that already existed. If you want to edit a record (exchange one for another) you explic- itly need to call the "Add A Record" window through the edit button in the database window, otherwise the new record will be added but no record will be deleted. 19.4 Keystrokes -a: Toggles the toggle for the -20dB attenuator -g: Cycles AGC buttons -f: Cycles filter buttons -i: Starts input in topmost field -m: Cycles mode buttons -r: Fetches all possible receiver data to fill in form (same as "fromRX" button) : Reset June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 53 : Add the record June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 54 20. Customization 20.1 Customization Of The WaveGazer There is no explicit feature to customize the application itself. But every user preference you set, e.g.. receiver preheating time in "Recording" window, will be saved to be re-applied on the next invocation of the feature. If you quit the WaveGazer with some windows left open, these win- dows will be closed before exiting and re-opened the next time you start up the WaveGazer. All possible customization (and also the colors) are kept in a large structure, which will be written to disk (in file "WG.CNF") at program exit and read at program startup. The menu options "Customize -> Save Settings" and "Customize -> Write Settings" may be used explicitly read or write this file. 20.2 Customization Of The Printer You may customize the printer by means of the dialogbox shown if you select "Customize -> Printer" menu. There are four fields labeled "Init": The string sent to the printer at startup of the WaveGazer. You may use this feature to initialize the printer to a certain mode to be used while in the WaveGazer. Normally, you may wish to leave this field blank. "Condensed": String to send to the printer to put it in con- densed mode. Condensed mode means that the printer should be able to print 132 characters / line. "Normal": String to send to the printer to select normal printing, 80 characters / line. "Reset": String sent to the printer upon closing of the WaveGazer. Use this to eventually reset settings initialized by the 'Init' string. You need to respect a defined syntax when filling in these fields: All printers use unprintable characters as control sequences, called escape sequences. If you need to send a escape character to the printer, fill in the field the sequence "*E", which will be translated to the "Escape" character, decimal 27, octal 033, hex 1B. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 55 Often, you will need enable condensed mode with the code 15 hex. This is a non-printable character as well, a . You will need to enter this code as a "^P", as UNIX users may know it... corresponds to 00H, to 01H, to 03H and so on. These codes, you only need to store them once, for all subsequent invocations of the WaveGazer, they will be read from the file WG.CNF, where they are saved. To test the codes you typed in, hit the "test" button, your printer prints out some test which shows if the codes are understood prop- erly! The toggle button on top of the window is to select if the printout will be page oriented, or shaped rather for endless paper. If set, a page-header will be printed on every page, if not, the header will be printed only once, on top of the first page. The page length for page oriented printout can be set in the respective field in this same window. (This page length does not include the height of the header, which is 4 lines!) 20.3 Customization Of The Colors The menu option "Customize -> Colors" will pop up a dialog box with several colors to choose from. (Change them by clicking in the color fields directly) All color selection boxes define two colors at once: "Backgr/Text": These are the colors of the window background and the text written on it "Frames": The two colors used for drawing the frames around the windows. If both colors are the same, no 3-d effect will be visible... "Buttons": These colors apply to the push-buttons, the knobs on the scrollbars and the VFO button in the re- ceiver control window. Buttons with 3-d appearance always use the same color (darkgray) as the lower shadow color and the text always will be written in black. "I/O Fields": The colors used for the background and the text in the textfields "Toggles": The color of the outline (the first color) and the one of the 'light' in it "Menus": Colors of the menus, same rules as for push buttons apply June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 56 "Textlines": The background and text color of the textlines in e.g. the file selection box or the data base win- dow. Also used in the main window of the memory editor "Graphs": Colors used to draw the scan graphs Changed colors are only read on construction of a widget, so exist- ing widgets do not change colors! June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 57 21. Release Notes Thanks to some user input, I was able to correct the following bugs up to now: In Release Beta.1: Release Beta.0 had problems on fast machines. To be honest, it only ran on rather slow machines. The problem was a communication time- out that was too short for faster machines, since I implemented the time-out in a simple loop. Now, the "Control" menu has one more op- tion, called "Calibrate". You need to calibrate your sample of Yakta just after the first time you started it up. The time-out value will be stored in the file "YAKTA.CNF" so you need to this only once. This communication problem showed up in different ways: The Memory Editor and the Memory Viewer showed channels contain- ing 8888.888 kHz even when the channel was either vacant or occu- pied. The Bandscan feature worked badly or not at all. Startup reported 'receiver not responding', although it was on. Sometimes, the receiver went in test mode, with all LED's lit on. When Yakta established a connection to the receiver, it used to set the variable bandwidth to 2000 Hz. This is no more the case. In Release Beta.2: The recording feature was so far unusable, in this release, I re- viewed the whole stuff and I think this should be better now. In Release Beta.2.1 (never distributed): The Bandscan feature allows you to monitor a single frequency over time. A bug where it did not stop at the end of the display has been corrected In Release Beta.3: The timer sometimes displayed strange times (30:08 UTC, e.g.). This was due to bad programming in the timer module. This release now records how many hours (minutes) the receiver is ahead of UTC and how many hours (minutes) the PC is ahead of UTC. This was needed by the new implementation of the timer. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 58 There is one new menu option: "Control -> Get Time Diff." This al- lows you to verify, how many minutes the PC's and the receiver's clock differ from UTC. (at least by definition, these are user sup- plied values.) The time differences UTC - localtime for the PC and the receiver may be supplied at program startup if they are different from 0. Take the case where your PC is set to localtime and the receiver to UTC (that's what I suggest). You live in the USA, 4 hours west of UTC, start Yakta with the line yakta 1 prn 4 0 which means "use serial port 1, printer prn, assume PC is 4 hours ahead (west) of UTC, and receiver's clock is on UTC." After startup, a popupbox is eventually displayed, telling that the times of PC and receiver differ. You now may synchronize either the receiver to the PC or the PC to the receiver's clock. Once in sync, the popupbox won't be displayed anymore on further invocations of the program. Some more examples of startup: Switzerland, one hour east of UTC, PC locatltime, RX UTC (in win- ter): C:\>yakta 1 lpt1 -1 0 and C:\>yakta 1 lpt1 -2 0 during daylight saving time (summertime). Somewhere in Russia, 4 hours east, PC and RX to localtime: C:\>yakta 1 lpt1 -4 -4 Users using a serial port other than com1 always needed to type C:\>yakta 2 [printer] With this release, all command line arguments are stored in "YAKTA.CNF", so you need to supply them only once! Eventual changes may be made by supplying them again. In Release Beta.4: The window manager handled some overlapping of windows wrong, e.g. the "Receiver Control" window and the "Recording" window. If then you deleted the partially hidden window, a lot of "runtime error == 1: mouse2:enabl(#)" covered the screen. I do not claim that there June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 59 will be no more such errors, but I did not see any of them in a later release! I found a name for the product: "The WaveGazer". I will call this software still Yakta while in test phase, but the day it will be 'adult' it will be the WaveGazer (...sounds much more professional ;-) The background already looks like it will, because I'm so proud on the logo! This release also exists for Hercules graphic adapter! In Release Beta.5.* (never distributed): I tried to implement two big improvements to the software, namely a database cache and what I call the 'tracking mode". The "tracking mode" allows the user to tune the receiver manually while the com- puter tries to find a record in the database which matches the re- ceiver's frequency. This was quite a tough thing to realize, and took me over all Beta.5.* versions (about 4565) to create something that works more or less. The "Database" window got a status line, which displays the actual status of the database cache. The introduction of the database cache resolved a old problem where upon hitting "Search" in the "Search" window, not all desired rec- ords were displayed, unless the user hit "Reset" button first. Was not very handy, indeed... Lots of small bugs were also corrected, bugs I don't remember any- more, but they existed and they certainly still have some col- leagues in Yakta somewhere! In Release Beta.6: Printing of databases is finally possible! Although possible al- ready in earlier versions, it is now really working and somewhat configurable! A popupbox has been added, asking the user for the desired format of the lists, simple (as before) or complete. Printers are configurable, a dialogbox for printer customization has been added. Startup has some bugs removed, especially concerning users not us- ing standard ports (com1 and lpt1) Error messages have been added to advert the user in case he forgot to specify the environment variables "YAKFIL" and "YAKSWP". June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 60 Unimplemented menu option "QSL" has been removed and has been re- placed with an option "About..." which is to pop up two dialog- boxes telling some information (junk...) There is a documentation which is up-to-date and which has an in- dex. Hooray! In v1.0 of WaveGazer: Changed the name from Yakta to WaveGazer. Changed the name of files and environment variables to reflect the new name: "YAKTA.CNF" got "WG.CNF", "YAKTA.REC" got "RECORD.DAT", "YAKFIL" is now "WG_FIL" and "YAKSWP" is "WG_SWP". Fixed a bug where the WaveGazer will hang if you close the "Bandscan" window while a sweep is running. Documentation has been reviewed. (Still not error free, but I rather speak German and French than English...) In v1.0A of WaveGazer: Fixed an ugly memory leak in the file selection box, which caused the WaveGazer to hang quite often. In v1.2 of WaveGazer It is now possible to have a database and a logbook open at the same time. This is necessary, if you browse a database and you wish to add entries to your logbook. Before, you needed to close the da- tabase, open the logbook, add the entry, close the logbook and fi- nally re-open the database. Definitely too complicated... Menu options "Database->Delete" and "Logbook->Delete" have been added, so you may delete databases and logbooks without exiting to good old DOS! Auto-calibration feature added. At first startup, the WaveGazer calibrates the communication time-out itself. The format of the config file has been changed one more time. June 1994 User's Guide The WaveGazer v1.2 Page 61 22. Problems In the "Bandscan" feature, if you select the fastest possible scan, the values read back may be wrong, e.g. always the same. If this occurs, you need to slow down the scan by means of the scrollbars for number of samples taken or (better) the one for the AGC settle time. If in "tracking mode", you should not use the keys to control the receiver from the keyboard frequently (at keyboard repetition rate): This may (and will) hang the program. It seems to me a prob- lem with interrupts in the communic tion PC - receiver. a The tracking may show some problems, but none of these crashed the application or even the PC. (lately, I did no more experience these problems, so maybe they are fixed?) There is (and always will be) a problem with passband settings and those for the variable bandwidth: Every time you attach or detach the receiver, or if tracking mode is entered or left, both settings change to default values. This is annoying, but working around this problem would mean introducing other unwanted phenomena... If you install this version of the WaveGazer in a directory where you already had a previous version of this software, you need to remove the file called "YAKTA.CNF", the configuration file. If you fail to remove it, Yakta will probably refuse to start or display the menus and other stuff in black. This is because the format of the config file has changed and consequently cannot be read cor- rectly. June 1994