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Equipment - Software There are a few software programs I use to help me monitor the radios and decode data. For me Scanrec is indisposable, since like any voice or squelch activiated recorder, it's like having someone sit at the radio for you and record transmissions while you're gone. There's a similar program out there called RecAll but I haven't tried it. Any comments are welcome in comparing the two. ScanRec Web site: http://www.davee.com/scanrec/ The screenshot to the right shows Scanrec in action. Anything in orange gets recorded to disk while green is under the squelch setting so gets left behind. I use Scanrec almost daily to record activity on 11175 and then go through the wav files later. It works great, and for a free program, ya can't beat it. Set it up in the morning, go to work, and come back to see what you got. The only complaint I would have is that the procedure to start a new recording seems somewhat reversed, I'm used to saving a document after creating it rather than before. Still, this is really just a nit. Scanrec helper: Fire up your radio on the desired frequency, with an audio out of some sort (headphone jack, speaker out, REC out) connected to the audio input of your computer (probably something like "line in") Run scanrec and click the Open button (which IMHO would be better named New) and pick a place and name for your new wav file to be stored. Scanrec will remember that location and take you there the next time you start a new .wav file. Hit the Record button, and you'll see the live audio waveform scrolling by. Note the average height of the waveform as it scrolls by when there are no transmissions. This level represents your noise floor. Set the "squelch" level with the slider underneath. On HF, you want the white area you are controlling to be just above the noise floor level. Let any noise pops or peaks touch a little bit, that way you'll get some weaker stations but at the same time not be recording too much noise. Remember orange is recorded, green is not. For recording on VHF and UHF while scanning, don't bother with it since your scanner squelch is controlling what gets recorded. Set the Scanrec squelch level at 2 or even 1%. When parking on a single VHF or UHF freq with the scanner squelch fully open use the same technique as for HF, only you won't have to worry as much about noise pops and peaks. Hit Stop when done and you'll have a .wav file and a .log file with the same file name that you chose at the beginning. Use any text editor to open the log file or you can display it right from the program. The log file shows the squelch breaks that occured during the recording, in 24 hour time(according to your computer), shown on the same line as relative to the time they occured inside the WAV file. Log away! Spectrogram Web site: http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/gram/gramdl.html The screenshot to the right shows Spectrogram listening to an ALE burst on 11226. You can make out the individual audio frequencies and spacing of the tones in use. I use spectrogram often when decoding digital modes on HF. It's perfect for tuning the radio to get a precise 1000hz tone for CW decoding, or the 2125hz tone that my M-6000 wants to hear in order to decode two-tone FSK signals. With a program like this, and there are quite a few of them, it's great to be able to see visually the composition of the audio coming out of the radio, and the effects of various knob twiddling on what you are hearing. If your radio has it, you can also see the results of fiddling with the Pass Band Tuning knobs in realtime which can be quite handy. It's also good for adjusting a DSP audio filter to get right at the edges of the voice you want to pick out. PC-ALE Web site: http://www.chbrain.dircon.co.uk/pcale.html The screenshot to the right shows PC-ALE decoding the below audio sample. PC-ALE allows you to take advantage of the Mil.Std 188-141A signal behind the Automatic Link Establishment system to not only decode traffic, but even control your radio is the same way a dedicated system would. Here is a sample audio clip of an ALE burst, found on 11175. You may have never heard of "ALE" but chances are you've heard that sound before. As a test, run the program and set your computer's record input to WAV rather than Line-in (makes your computer listen to itself) and play this one. You should get something like: [01:18:58][CHN 00][TO ][ADW     ][TIS][280053          ][AL0] BER 30 SN 02 This is also shown in the screenshot. Depending on what settings you have checked or unchecked in the options area, you may have a bunch more data than this. I have "command trace" turned off on mine, which is the source of a lot of extra data not needed for the casual monitor. Also the first bit of data will be different, that's the time stamp. This one is a C-17, tail number 98-0053, calling Andrews AFB (ADW). Remember to go to your mixer console (usually from double clicking on the little speaker icon in your system tray) after you are done with PC-ALE and raise the WAV volume back to normal. The program automatically takes it down when you launch it. More advanced users can have the program control their radio, scanning a set of frequencies and decoding as well as recording to wav file any ALE initiated voice patches that might occur. For more information on ALE, tie-ups for station and aircraft identifiers, as well as a rather juicy photo of the ALE control panel on a UH-60L, go to the ALE Information page on the WUN web site.

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