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RxPlus V 1.91
(much more than a Controller Software ...)

Now with a new Band Monitor Scan Mode

Read a review of RxPlus published in Monitoring Times, Aug. 2005 (pdf)

Stand Alone Audio Processor
(* for registered users only)

Now with full featured support for the ILG AND HFCC Databases

and Drake R8A/B,ICOM PCR-1000, ICOM R756Pro and ICOM R756 Pro I ICOM IC-R75, JRC NRD-535, Kenwood R5000, TenTec RX320(D) and TenTec RX350D receivers

Short Wave Receiver Controller / DSP Audio Processor / Digital Modes Decoder / DataBase Manager Software
By: Tele Data Inc.

Presentation

RxPlus is a full featured Short-wave Receiver Controller software for a growing number of receivers.
Here are the currently supported receivers:

Manufacturer	Model(s)	RxPlus Specific Feature
Drake	Drake R8A/B	Drake R8 specific feature list
Icom	PCR-1000 , IC-R75 R756Pro R756Pro II	ICOM specific feature list
JRC	JRC NRD535	JRC NRD-535 / NRD-545 specific feature list
Kenwood	Kenwood R5000	Kenwood R5000 specific feature list
Ten Tec	Ten-Tec RX-350D Ten-Tec RX-320	RX350 Control Panel. RX320 Control Panel.

Note: If you have a (PC controllable) receiver that you would like to be supported by RxPlus, please contatct us for details on how you could help ...

RxPlus is much more than a simple receiver controller, in fact it's like four application in one with:
- A full featured Receiver Controller.
- An Audio Processor.
- A Digital mode Decoder
- A Shortwave and User's Data Base Manager.

In short, with a host of advanced features that are normally only found on high end DSP receivers, RxPlus will turn your
PC controlled receiver into a powerful station and will greatly enhance your listening experience !

It's main features are:
- An Exclusive Chat System for exchanging in real time with other RxPlus users.
- A Unique Visual Band Explorer for easy band selection and scanning.
- A powerful Scanning Engine with distinctive features like Strong Signal Highlighting and Automatic Squelch
- An exclusive DSP Audio Processing module with:
    Audio Wave form Display
    Spectrum Display
    Waterfall Display
    Audio Filters (VERY effective Noise Reduction filters, BandPass, Notch, Compressor / Expander)
Hear the Audio file examples below for a demonstration of the DSP Filters.

- No less than 12 ways to Tune your receiver !
       - Tuning Knob, KeyBoard, KeyPad (NUM+/-), Mouse, Mouse Wheel, Visual Band Explorer
       - Memories, Quad VFOs, BookMarks, ClipBoard, "Fast Tuning" Slider and Data Base Lookup !

-Digital Mode Decoding with currently RTTY, PSK31, HF FAX,    SSTV    !
   Exclusive 12 KHz IF Software Decoder for AM / LSB / USB with 10 new Software FIR Filters.

- Extended ILGRadio´s and HFCC Shortwave Database support with: -
    - Sort Entries By Frequency, Country, Language, Target, Power etc.
    - Data Base Filters for Language, On Air (Currently Broadcasting)and Hi-Power Only
    - Automatic DataBase Lookup when tuning the Short-wave Broadcast Band.
    - Direct Frequency selection by clicking an entry in the data base display.
- Data Base Scan

- Popular .320 DataBase format support.

This coma delimited text data base format provide a great source of frequencies for utility station,
AIR / Marine utilities etc. Many "320" files are provided in the installation package.
You can also scan these database and create your own ...

- RxPlus offers many advanced features that are normally only found on hi-end receivers like:

- Exclusive Automatic ECSS / AM Tuning !

- Calibration Wizard / Full Coverage Frequency Error Correction

Precisely calibrate your receiver for it's full coverage. The Automatic Calibration Wizard uses FFT analysis to provide
very precise calibration with ONE mouse click. Using a two point calibration system, your receiver will always be right on the tuned frequency
with a +/- 8 Hz accuracy and this for the whole range covered by your receiver. This precision in tuning can be verified at all time by the fact
that you can tune any AM signal in ECSS mode by simply switching to LSB or USB ... for even more precision use the Auto ECSS tuning.

- IF PassBand Tuning

"IF Passband" Tuning refer to a way of shifting the received signal within the receiver IF filter in order to help to eliminate some adjacent interfering signals.
This shifting of the signal has the effect of cutting some frequencies on one "side" or the other of the signal, while keeping the signal "on Pitch" by shifting the
"Beat Frequency Oscillator" in the opposite direction. This can advantageously be used to filter out some interfering signals.

- 12 Khz IF AM/LSB/USB Decoder

For those who have a receiver with a 12Khz IF output (RX320D or modified receiver) , RxPlus offer a 12Khz IF AM/LSB/USB software decoder..
The 12Khz IF can provide a much better audio quality by the fact that it can use more than 10 Khz of bandwidth. RxPlus provide a new set
of DSP filters ranging from 1000 to 10000 Hz and a unique visual tuning method as well as an 'IF" waterfall display to help in tuning. You can even
tune in ECSS mode using the IF LSB / USB decoders.
Note: This feature is still undocumented and evolving ... more improvement to come ....

- ECSS Support

Visual Band Explorer

The picture above is a representation of the top portion of the Band Explorer. This All Bands setting is the default. Click on any band markers (the colored vertical strips) to select and zoom in on that band For instance clicking on the green 19 M band marker will bring you this:
Band19M

To start scanning this band click on the "Scan Band" button.
Click again on the top of the Band Explorer to go back to the All Bands setting as pictured in the first image.

Use the Band menu to select which of the band type(s) to display. You can select from the following:
AERO:        Aeronautical (Airplanes and Control Towers).
FIXED:        Marine Coastal Stations and Government agencies.
MARINE:        Marine
AM BCB        Amplitude Modulation Broadcast bands (Including "AM" Band)
HAM CW        Radio Amateurs Morse Code Bands
HAM SSB       Radio Amateurs Single Side Band Mode Bands

Citizen Band

The Citizen Band Explorer is customized for CB band exploration. Clicking on a channel represented by the vertical white and yellow stripes, will setup the frequency for that channel. Clicking on the Band Explorer again will not bring you back to the All Bands display as with the the bands so you will need to use the band selector or preset to go back to the other Band Explorer.

VHF and UHF Band Explorer

BD High

RxPlus's Band explorer also offers a VHF and a UHF bands display for the receivers that supports these
frequency ranges. Bands includes: All VHF/UHF HAM Band as well as TV, FM Broadcast, AERO
Utilities and GPS satellites bands.

Scanning Engine

TD RX-Plus Controller offers a very versatile scanning engine with distinctive features: The Graphical Band Explorer offer a visual representation of the tuning range that allows easy band and scanning range selection . The Band Explorer also display the result of a scan and allow the user to select any frequency from the screen simply by a mouse click. The Strong Signal Highlighting feature will highlight strong signals in a scan and allow easy navigation between them by clicking the red Arrow buttons.

Scan Display

The scan display is actually the center part of the Band Explorer. This show the result of a scan.

Strong Signal Highlighting

The yellow vertical bars in the Bands Display represent the relative strength of the signal while the red bars represent the highlighted or "hot" frequencies.
These are selected peaks in the signal compared to the average represented by the dashed line, where stations are susceptible to be heard.
After the scan has finished, the two red arrows will become enabled. These allow you to browse back and forth between the highlighted frequencies
represented by the red bars in the Scan Display.

Scanning Out of Band segments:

You can select any band segment by clicking in the first top quarter of the Band Explorer screen and dragging toward left or right to select a sub band.
A yellow band will mark the currently selected band as you drag the mouse and upon releasing, the selected band will be "zoomed In". This is useful when
you want to explore the "out of the bands" activity and search for marine, aircraft or government agencies signals. You could also select several bands and
do a wide scan with say a 50 KHz step rate to get an overview of the activity on the air.

Band Monitor Scan Mode

The Band Monitor Scan mode is similar to the other scan modes except for two important differences:
The scan is continuous, that is once the end of the selected band is reached, the scan will resume at the beginning.
Instead of displaying the signal strength using a bar graph, shades of color are used.
Each new scan "run" will be displayed on top of the scan display window.
See below a picture of the Band Monitor display after a scan on the 49 M SW Broadcast band.

- There is enough memory to scan at 5 samples / sec. for 8 hours ! that is 144000 samples
- The scan data can be saved to disk as a binary file
- The scan data file can later be loaded and displayed in the RxPlus scan data display for reference.
- Auto Zooming (adjust color intensities)
- Set Band and Step size and display from lodded data.
- Monitor a preselected band or any user selected segment ... Even the whole HF range if wanted ...

There are many usage for this function ... here are a few:
- Search for utilities that broadcast only infrequently.
- Monitor a band for activity (HAM, SW BCB, BCB, CB etc... )
- Monitor a xmiter for QRM (IOBC, DRM etc ...)
- Etc ...

Band Monitor Display

Automatic ECSS / AM Tuning

RxPlus offers an Automatic ECSS Tuning feature that makes it very easy to tune an AM signal in ECSS mode. This function uses the Audio Processor and FFT analysis to determinate the AM station carrier frequency and then adjusts the receiver tuning frequency to precisely "zero beat" on the transmitter.

To use the Auto ECSS Tuning feature:

- First, tune in a AM signal to within a precision of +/- 1.5 Khz.
- Press the Auto ECSS Tuning button . or select the Auto Tune ECSS menu item from the Tune Menu or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-E).

The signal will be tuned and the mode switched (if needed) to either USB or LSB.
You can verify the accuracy of the procedure by switching from AM to USB and LSB. The pitch of the audio should remain the same (or close to). You can repeat the Auto Tuning procedure any number of time.

Note that the Audio Processor must be running for this function to be available.

Manual ECSS Tuning

RxPlus also offer a Tuning Aid for tuning ECSS "manually".

1 -Tune in the desired AM signal.
2 -Switch Mode to USB (or LSB) and make sure the Decoder is set to NONE.
3- Turn Audio Processing ON and select the Waterfall Display.
4- Now tune the receiver DOWN (USB) or UP (LSB) 1000 Hz by clicking under (or over) the thousand digit of the frequency display. (or use any other tuning method)
5- You should now hear and see the carrier near the 1000 Hz mark on the Waterfall display. Bring the mouse cursor as precisely as possible over the carrier (red line) and left click. Voilà ! The receiver frequency will be adjusted and you should now be very close to "zero beat".

You can verify the accuracy of the procedure by switching from AM to USB and LSB. The pitch of the audio should remain the same (or close to). You can repeat this procedure any number of time.

Automatic AM Tuning

The Automatic tuning function can also be used to precisely tune in an AM station. To use this function:

- Tune in a AM signal to within a precision of +/- 1.5 Khz.
- Select the Auto Tune AM menu item from the Tune Menu or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-A).

Audio Processing module

The Audio processing module adds a whole new dimension to your SWR listening experience. It can greatly enhance your listening experience
by providing some advanced capabilities that are normally only found on high end DSP receivers and even some unique features like
digital audio recording or digital mode decoding. The Audio WaveForm / FFT (spectrum) and Waterfall display is also a unique feature
that provide a new level of information on the radio signal that is greatly helpful in setting the DSP filters to block an interference
or to tune a digital signal for instance.

The Audio Processing Module uses Low Level Audio processing and FFT filtering to help improve the intelligibility of the received audio. The Audio Processing Module actually records the receiver audio output and plays it back after processing using FFT filters and DSP techniques.

When running, the Audio Processor will record the incoming audio from the Line In of the sound card, then apply the selected filters and playback the processed audio on the sound card Wave Out Line.

When turned OFF the sound card will be configured to play the audio unprocessed as received from the Line In input. Windows mixer's Line In control will be selected and the Wave Out control will get muted.

Audio Wave Form Display
Audio Display

Frequency Spectrum Display
FFT Display

You can see a Notch filter at 2000 Hz and a Low Pass filter from 0 - 200 Hz

"WaterFall" Display
WaterFall Display

A few PSK31 signals and a Pactor/Amtor signal ...

The Audio Wave form Display is a representation of the Audio Level (on the Y axis) over time (on the X axis). The Audio Processing module keeps the last 64 seconds of recorded audio in memory for instant playback with a single mouse click. You can also save the current audio buffer (last 64 sec. or less) by clicking on the Save Audio button This display is also useful for adjusting the Compressor/Expander levels.

The frequency spectrum display is a representation of the frequency components of the received audio at a given moment. The Y axis represent the relative energy of the frequencies from 0 to 8000 Hz represented on the X axis. This display is useful when adjusting the frequency domain filters.

The Waterfall display is related to the FFT display as it is a representation of the frequency content of the audio signal over time but instead of displaying instant values this display cumulates the value over a period of time and display the frequency content for the last few seconds. This display is mainly used for the digital modes.

Digital Mode Decoding

The Digital modes is one of the most interesting aspect of short-wave listening There are literally hundreds of existing digital modes, many of which are still in use today. Digital Modes are used to transmit information using a radio link. This digitally encoded information can contain text messages or even pictures.

RX-Plus currently supports four modes which are RTTY, PSK31, HF-FAX and SSTV.

SSTV

Receiving SSTV pictures is one of the most fascinating aspect of SWL. SSTV pictures are mostly sent by HAM.
RxPlus offers a very strong SSTV decoder together with a powerful and user friendly image management interface.

SSTV

Here are the currently supported modes with more to come ...
(NOTE: The most frequent SSTV mode are Scottie (America) and Martin (Europe) which together cover the
largest part of the current SSTV traffic.

Mode Name	Size (W X H)	Time	Color Type
Scottie 1	320 X 256	110	RGB
Scottie 2	320 X 256	71	RGB
Martin 1	320 X 256	114	RGB
Martin 2	320 X 256	58	RGB
Pasokon P5	640 X 496	305	RGB
Pasokon P7	640 X 496	406	RGB

SSTV Pictures

Here are a few pictures received by RxPlus. All in Scottie 1 Mode.
(Note that the pictures are JPeg compressed which degrades somewhat the quality ...)

See the Screen Shoots page for more pictures ...

HF-Fax

The following picture show HF-FAX reception.

Fax

Fax Pictures

Note: These files have been reduced from their original 1800 pixel width.

FAX 1: FAX2: FAX3:

PSK-31

The picture below is an example of receiving a PSK31 signal on the 20 Meter HAM band.

PSK31

12KHz IF Software Detector.

RxPlus features an exclusive 12KHz IF software detector that can demodulate AM, LSB or USB signals directly from
the 12KHz IF Output of receivers like the TenTec RX320D or any other receiver that provide a 12KHz IF output.
When using the software detector, RxPlus provides a new set of 10 Software FIR filters ranging from a width of 1000 Hz to 10000 Hz.

Using the Software detector allows for an audio bandwidh of up to 10 000 Hz .
This can provide a much better audio quality when the interference and adjacent noise permit.

12KHzIF

The display goes from 0 to 24000 HZ with, in the middle, the IF frequency of 12000 Hz in red.
The red bar around the decoding frequency represents the width of the decoding as set by the filter (above 5000 Hz
and below 10000 Hz).
On the left side of the waterfall display is the actual audio representation as decoded by the 12KHz IF decoder.
Changing the decode frequency from 12000 has the same effect of tuning the receiver. That is, setting the decoding
frequency at 11000 is exactly like tuning 1000 lower or setting at 17000 Hz would be equivalent of tuning 5Khz higher.

12K_IF_2

The next picture shows the "Raw" 12KHz IF signal (Undemodulated) display, showing the carrier at 12Khz
and the two sides which contains the AM Modulation

12K_IF_3

NOTE: The minimum system requirements for this mode is a PIII 800 MHz with 256 MB RAM and good sound card.

ILG and HFCC Short-wave Database Support

- Extended ILG and HFCC Short-wave Database support with:

    - Sort Entries By Frequency, Country, Language, Target, Power etc.
    - Data Base Filters for Language, On Air (Currently Broadcasting) and Hi-Power Only
    - Automatic DataBase Lookup when tuning the Short-wave Broadcast Bands.
    - Direct Frequency selection by clicking an entry in the data base display.

RxPlus also features a User's DataBase used to store a sub-set of entry of your choice.
You can copy an existing entry from the ILG Data Base or create new ones.
This feature is useful to store your preferred stations and or to store other frequencies of interest in the HAM, and Utilities bands etc. ...
Also, RxPlus offers a very complete support for the popular .320 text database format which is a fine source of utilities an lots of other
frequencies. Many of theses frequency lists are provided in the All320DB.ZIP file provided in the installation package.

Top

Stand Alone Audio Processor program.

Registered users will get the Stand Alone version of the outstanding DSP Audio processing program that is built in RxPlus !
This will allow you to use RxPlus AP with any other software (that doesn't use the sound card itself) ...
You can even use it as a stand alone AP for other purpose that SWL ...
Here is a sceen capture of the SA Audio Processor Program:

SA_AP

Examples

Audio files

Note: These audio files are compressed using Ms GSM6.10 or MP3. In consequence the audio quality has been reduced and you may hear some distortion introduced by the compression process.

Example1: Automated Weather station with high noise and hiss at around 3000 Hz.

This audio file starts with no audio processing, then a Notch filter, centered around 3000Hz, is applied then Noise Reduction is applied.
All filters are removed toward the end of the file.

Example2: Voices with high background noise.

This example demonstrates the noise reduction filters with speech.

Example3: Ham Radio Speech.

This example demonstrates the noise reduction filters and compressor with amateur radio speech.

Example4: Music with Noise.

This example demonstrates the noise reduction filters with classical music from Radio Exterior de Espana..

Example5: Hiss, Hum and Noise.

This example starts by applying a Notch filter centered at around 1650 Hz. Then noise reduction is applied and finally a LowPass filter remove the low frequencies below 220 Hz. The LP filter is the turned on and off to show it's effect.

Example6: Voice, good signal with Hiss, and some Noise .

This example starts with NR, Notch, Bandpass (Low Pass), and Normalize filters applied. The filters are then turned on and off.

Example7: Counter Tenor Voice, good signal with Hiss, and some Noise .

Another filters example with beautiful countertenor voice by Canadian singer Daniel Taylor.
This is a longer examples which uses NR, Notch and Bandpass Filters. The filters are turned off at 0:25 and periodically toggled.
The noise reduction filter were also modified during the recording.
(Excerpts recorded from Radio Canada International, 05/16/2004)

Example8: Automatic ECSS Tuning Example.

This is BBC on 15190 Khz with a strong interference in AM mode. Then the Auto ECSS Tuning is applied.
Hear the difference ! The signal is now tuned in USB at 15189990 ... No AP filters are used.

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Contacts

For more information, please contact:

send an e-mail
(If this link doesn't work ... please write to: "RxPlus(at)teledata.qc.ca ... NOTE: replace the (at) with @
... sorry about this but that is to avoid the numerous Web crawlers that collects email addresses from the WWW)

TELE DATA Inc.

Last updated 03/17/2011

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