SPLAT! 1.2.3 for Windows available

Sorry I haven't gotten this out the door sooner. SPLAT! 1.2.3 from John Magliacane has some bug fixes and accuracy improvements. More info is in the documentation. One feature that someone on the blog requested was the ability to save the GnuPlot temp files for post processing (re-scaling, etc.). This is the new -gpsav option.

Please let me know if you have any problems. If you are wondering what SPLAT! is, see this previous post.


http://people.missouristate.edu/jmcmellen/software/splat-1.2.3-win32.zip

SPLAT! 1.2.2 for Windows is ready

I ran into some problems caused by the compiler trying to "optimize" some of the math routines, so after a lot of troubleshooting, I lowered the optimization level to -O1. Version 1.2.2 for Windows is ready to use. Please let me know if you have any problems. If you are wondering what SPLAT! is, see this previous post.

http://people.missouristate.edu/jmcmellen/software/splat-1.2.2-win32.zip

Orban releases public beta of Loudness Meter software

Orban announced today a public beta of a software Loudness Meter for Windows. The free download can be found here.

Here is an excerpt from the press release:

ORBAN INTRODUCES FREE LOUDNESS/LEVEL METERING SOFTWARE

San Leandro, CA, April 10, 2008 Orban today
announced that the first public beta of Orban
Loudness Meter software for Windows XP and Vista
is now available for free download from www.orban.com/meter.

This is the first of a family of Orban meters.
Future paid versions will offer upgraded features
including logging, surround monitoring, and
oversampled peak measurements that accurately
indicate the peak level of the audio after D/A conversion.

[snip]

The Orban software runs on Windows XP and Vista
computers having 1.5 GHz or faster Intel Pentium
4 or Intel-compatible processors that implement
the SSE2 instruction set. While the software can
be driven by any installed Windows sound device,
monitoring playback from an application like
Windows Media Player requires the sound hardware to support Windows Wave I/O.

Get Internet Temperature Data for Automation

We had been using a Sine Systems CTI-2 temperature interface to get the outdoor temperature into our automation system. We recently developed a cable problem between the probe and the interface which prevented accurate readings. After some thought, I wrote this little program to simulate the response of the unit while getting temperature data from the National Weather Service. We have been using it for a couple of months now, and even though it only updates once an hour, it seems to provide a reasonable reading for the temperature. It could really be used with any program that is compatible with the CTI-2.

The software runs on a Windows PC with the Microsoft .NET 2.0 software installed. It will communicate on a pair of hardware serial ports if you have two to spare and can loop from one to the other. Or, what we did is use a virtual serial driver (com0com) to create a pair of serial ports in software, one for the program and the other for the automation system. This works great and you can install as many pairs as you might possibly need.

The download includes the source and a compiled executable that you can configure at runtime. It should hopefully be mostly self explanatory.

http://people.missouristate.edu/jmcmellen/software/serialwxget_0.5.zip

SPLAT! for Windows featured in TV Technology magazine

Doug Lung, a columnist for TV Technology magazine, recently featured the Windows version of Splat! in his RF Technology column. The article provides a good overview of how to use Splat! in Windows for generating Longley-Rice coverage data and maps.

Alarm relay modification for Comstream demods

An engineer at public radio station KPLU, Lowell Kiesow, has shared a modification to the Comstream ABR700 demods that are now in use for the Squawk channel. This mod implements an EbNo Threshold Alarm contact that is listed in the manual, but was not installed by the PRSS. It is useful to set this as a way of getting notified of satellite system problems, most often as a "snow in the dish" alarm. It was posted with this disclaimer:

Official sounding legal disclaimer: If you break your satellite demod, burn yourself soldering, or get electrocuted, it's not my fault, or the fault of my employer. Don't go crying to the PRSS folks, either. :-)

Link to modification http://www.plu.edu/~baumanja/ABR700/