WR-3700 series User’s Guide
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Introduction Designed for government, military, security, surveillance and industrial applications, WiNRADiO Spectrum Monitor puts advanced radio receiver technology directly on a personal computer platform to create a high-performance PC-based spectrum surveillance and monitoring system.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Installation The WiNRADiO internal version package contains the following items: • WiNRADiO receiver card The WiNRADiO external version package contains the following items: • WiNRADiO receiver unit • RS-232 cable • Power adaptor • PC Card Adaptor option (if ordered) • Portable Power Source option (if ordered) Both packages include the following items: • WiNRADiO software installation disk • Indoor test antenna • This User’s Guide • The manufacturer’s warranty
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide 6. Carefully insert the card into the vacant slot, and push until it is firmly seated. Screw the metal bracket at the end of the card to the computer case (this must be done to minimise ground-conducted interference). 7. Replace the computer case and reconnect the power cord. 8. Plug a speaker or headphones into the audio jack at the rear of the card.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide 3700e Hardware Installation 1. First install the software (see below). 2. Connect the supplied power adaptor to the +12V DC power socket on the rear of the unit, and switch the unit on. 3. Connect the supplied RS-232 (or optional PC Card Adaptor) cable between the computer and the WiNRADiO unit. 4. Connect the antenna to the BNC connector at the rear of the unit, and extend the antenna up and as far away as possible. Software Installation 1.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide I/O Configuration To inform the software of the hardware configuration, a Control Panel applet is used. Open Control Panel and double-click on the WiNRADiO icon. A dialog box will appear, which allows you to specify the hardware configuration for the software. Windows 3.1, 95 and 98 As can be seen, up to 8 internal cards can be configured, and for each card installed, a suitable I/O address must be nominated.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Troubleshooting Installation Problems If you try to start-up your WiNRADiO receiver for the first time and you are presented with a dialog box stating that the WiNRADiO receiver card could not be found, you most likely have a configuration problem. If you are using an internal WiNRADiO model, open the WiNRADiO configuration utility from Control Panel by double-clicking on it. Click on ‘Auto Detect’.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Intermodulation Problems Your WiNRADiO receiver has been designed to be very sensitive in order for it to work with the moderately small antennas which are preferable for VHF/UHF. In areas with strong local broadcast stations, the WiNRADiO receiver front-end may overload and, as a result, intermodulation products may appear in the received band. By pressing the Local button on the control panel, the interference products will disappear.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Using WiNRADiO When you first start WiNRADiO, you are presented with a radio receiver interface. The image below shows the main parts of the control panel. The following few sections document each of the parts in detail. Basic Controls Frequency Readout The frequency readout shows the current receiver frequency.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide mouse button. To increase the frequency, click the right mouse button. On the bottom half, the cursor will flip vertically . The mouse buttons will now operate in reverse, with the left increasing and the right decreasing the frequency. To tune the receiver from the keyboard, press the up/down cursor keys to increase and decrease the frequency respectively.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide If you wish, you can have different squelch thresholds for normal reception and scanning. To activate this feature, go to Configure - General Options and select Separate squelch for scanning. The receiver will then accept different squelch thresholds on the front panel, and in the ‘Scanner - Setup’ dialog box (described later). Attenuator The attenuator controls the level of the RF signal entering the receiver front-end.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Before this feature can be used, it is necessary to set up one or more stepping ranges. To do this, first select Auto-stepping from the Configure menu. A dialog box will appear, allowing you to establish the auto-stepping ranges. To add a range, click on the Add button. Another dialog box will appear, allowing you to specify the lower and upper frequency limits, the desired step size for that range, the mode, squelch level, and a text description.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Storing a Frequency into Memory To store the current frequency you are tuned to into one of the 1000 memory locations in WiNRADiO, you can either click on the S button in the Memory panel, or press S on the keyboard. A dialog box will pop up, and present you with a range of options you can fill in. At the top of the dialog box is the frequency you are storing (this cannot be edited). The next line is the next available memory number that is empty (starting with zero).
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Control-Number To recall any memory, hold down the Control key down while typing the number of the memory. Alternatively you can click on the memory display, enter the number, and then press Enter to recall it. Memory Recall/View The final alternative is to click on the R button or press the R key, upon which a memory recall dialog box will pop up allowing you to view and recall any frequency from a list.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Scanning WiNRADiO provides a variety of scanning functions and options, to allow you to optimise the way you search for stations. The scanner steps through frequencies until it finds a transmission that has a signal strength greater than the squelch value. The following sections describe the available scanning methods and associated options. Immediate Scanning Immediate scanning is the quickest and simplest way to search for stations.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Select the range of memory numbers to scan, mode and group restrictions. Click on the Scan button to start scanning, or click on the Close button to exit the dialog box (your settings will be remembered). When the scanner reaches the end of the memory range, it loops back to the start of the range and starts again. A feature provided with memory scanning allows you to assign ‘priority’ memory number.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide The WiNRADiO scanner can also alert the operator by means other than the scanner dialog box. The operator can be alerted by an audible beep and/or by sending data on a parallel port, typically for remote notification. WiNRADiO can have two separate squelch settings: one for audio and one for scanning. This option is specified under ‘General Options’ in the ‘Configure’ menu. If this feature is enabled, another control is visible at the bottom of the dialog box.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide The ‘PLL’ indicator shows the lock status of the receiver’s Phase Lock Loop. When operating normally, the indicator is green. If something goes wrong, it will turn red indicating that the receiver cannot tune into a specific frequency. The ‘Power’ indicator indicates that the receiver is powered up. Power Switch The power switch controls the radio receiver’s power. When it is off, the actual receiver circuitry is powered down.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Background Colour To adjust the background colour, select Background Colour from the View menu. A dialog box will appear that allows you to specify the colour you want for your background. You can select one of several predefined colours, visually select a colour using the colour box (hue v saturation) and the ‘luminance’, or enter the colour specifying actual RGB or HSL values. Click on Apply to see the colour before closing the dialog box.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Spectrum Scope The ‘Spectrum Scope’ is a utility to display and store the signal level across a frequency range. After a frequency sweep has been performed, you can tune to any frequency on the display. To tune to a frequency or peak on the display, click on it. You can hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor across the display quickly tuning to any frequency on the display (this facility will be described in greater detail under chapter heading ‘VisiTune’).
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide VisiTune™ A unique feature of the WiNRADiO Spectrum Scope makes it possible to smoothly tune the receiver by dragging the mouse against a spectrum background. This feature is called ‘VisiTune’. When you click on a spectrum sweep with the left mouse button, the receiver will tune to the frequency where the mouse is located (the frequency is displayed in the top-left corner of the scope window).
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Printing Every sweep can be printed for archiving and presentations. Click on Print in the file menu. A dialog box will pop up allowing you to specify several settings for printing.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Task Scheduler WiNRADiO includes an advanced task scheduler that can be configured to schedule almost any task that WiNRADiO can perform. Each task can be triggered by a selected combination of date and time, signal level rise or fall and DSP event. Each task can activate any number of times and time-triggered tasks can occur at discrete intervals. You can also save and load schedules to different files.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Signal Strength Transition A task can be set to be performed when the signal level rises and stays above (or falls and stays below) a certain threshold for a certain period of time. Check the Signal transition check box, and set the parameters accordingly, if you want to take advantage of this feature. Used on its own (or with the DSP event), this task can trigger at any time while WiNRADiO is operating.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide The file name can also include a #d, #t, #f and/or #n to specify the date, time, frequency and a unique number respectively. If you need a # in the file name, enter ## (double-hash). The date and time will be represented as a 6 digit number and the frequency is in kHz. The date order depends on your country settings in Windows (will be typically DDMMYY or MMDDYY), and the time is HHMMSS (24 hour). The number is represented as a four digit number with leading zeros.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Sound Recorder The inbuilt DSP allows WiNRADiO to record and playback audio files without the need for a separate sound card. The file generated is a standard Windows .WAV file which can be played by any third party software application. WiNRADiO can even play most wave files generated by other applications (mono only). There are several audio formats you can record in, depending on your choice of quality versus file size.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Initially, you have to add a trace (or more) to be recorded by clicking on the Add button. Enter the appropriate data. You can also specify a colour to show the trace on the display. A list of traces is shown in the drop-down list to the left of the ‘Add’ button. If you wish to edit, disable/enable or delete any traces, select a trace and click on Edit, Disable/Enable or Delete buttons respectively.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide dialog box will pop up asking you for a comment. Otherwise, the settings are stored to the log without a comment. The Log Editor WiNRADiO Spectrum Monitor uses a separate program to view and edit the log files it generates. To view and/or edit the log, select Edit log from the Logger menu. The 'WiNRADiO Log Editor' will start up loading the currently active log file. The editor allows you to open multiple files at the same time, cut, copy and paste between them.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide You can also save the active file that has been modified by clicking on the save button, selecting Save from the menu or by pressing Ctrl+S. If it is a new file, you will be prompted for a name to save the file under. If you exit the log editor without saving modified files, you will be asked whether you want to save each file or not. If you want to save the current file under a different name and/or location, select Save as from the menu and enter a new file name.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide External Antenna Control Many installations use at least one antenna, each antenna being suited for a particular frequency band. For adequate full spectrum reception, at least two antennas are required: an HF and a VHF/UHF antenna, typically a wire and a discone respectively. Using a suitable external logic control box connected to a parallel port on the PC, WiNRADiO can automatically switch between antennas according to the frequency WiNRADiO is tuned to.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide DSP The WiNRADiO Spectrum Monitor internal receiver (WR-3700i-DSP) has a DSP fitted to allow digital processing of the audio from the receiver. This gives the receiver the ability to filter the audio, decode digital data and perform other processing on the audio signal. In-built DSP applets allow recording and playback from the Sound Recorder feature.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide 5. Gain sets the pre-processing numerical gain of the signal inside the DSP. This parameter helps to resolve the ‘signal-to-noise vs. audio distortion’ trade-off. If the filtered signal sounds too distorted, choose a lower gain. The ‘AGC’ option activates automatic gain control algorithm. This function does not supplement the main AGC for the receiver, as it is applied only 'inside' the DSP as an automatic numerical amplification adjustment. 6.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Developer Information If you would like to develop your own software for the WiNRADiO receiver, full programming information is available from the WiNRADiO WWW site on the Internet at http://www.winradio.com. Full API and DDE specifications are outlined including source and examples that can be downloaded for C++, Delphi and Visual Basic programmers.
WR-3700 Series User’s Guide Declaration Of Conformity This device, trade name WiNRADiO Communications Receiver, model number WR-3700iDSP or WR-3700e complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
