Carrier Sleuth 1.0.0

[ChrisSmolinski]

Carrier Sleuth (For Windows and the Mac) generates very high resolution waterfalls from I/Q recording files made by several SDR (Software Defined Radio) programs. Namely:
SpectraVue
SdrDx
Perseus
Studio1 / SDRUno
ELAD
Sdr-Radio

These waterfalls can be used to observe the multitude of MW (Medium Wave) stations on a single channel at the same time, even when only one station can be clearly heard. Or even when no station can be heard, such as with the 9 kHz channels from Europe and Asia. Carrier Sleuth does this by performing very long FFTs on the data, up to a 32 million point FFT.

This is the first version, 1.0.0, and can be downloaded here, there's also instructions on using the app: http://blackcatsystems.com/software/medium_wave_carrier_display_app.html

[skeezix]

Carrier Sleuth is offered without any warranty at all. Use at your own risk. Guaranteed to blow up your computer, zap your radios, and destroy the ionosphere. Keep away from Al Fansome at all costs.

Keep away from Al Fansome at all costs.

[Josh]

I presume this download includes a rather large and compromising dossier on Belinda.

[ChrisSmolinski]

Version 1.0.3 is now out, fixes a crashing problem when doing a 32M point FFT. Hopefully.

[bds2]

Very nice, Chris - I just tried out the Windows 1.0.3 version; I recorded a Perseus file ~ 12 minutes @ 125 kHz tonight and it processed just fine. Just for grins I re-ran it at 9 kHz spacing and darned if it didn't find some TA carriers that I didn't know were there. Nice work!

Brett Saylor
W3SWL

[skeezix]

I gave 1.0.3 for Windows a set of 125 ksps Perseus files and it still crashes on FFT size of 16M & 32M.

[ChrisSmolinski]

I gave 1.0.3 for Windows a set of 125 ksps Perseus files and it still crashes on FFT size of 16M & 32M.

Ack yes. I was able to make it crash with 16M and 32M FFTs.  I've made some more changes, and now it is not crashing, so version 1.0.4 is now available for download. We'll eventually get this working 

[skeezix]

With 1.0.4 on Windows, I fed it Perseus files at 16M & 32M FFT and it processed them fine.

Do have a question about the display, the higher the FFT, the less vertical it becomes. Is that expected?

[ChrisSmolinski]

Do have a question about the display, the higher the FFT, the less vertical it becomes. Is that expected?

Yes. Each line on the waterfall is the output of one FFT. So as you double the FFT length, you end up with half as many of them, so the waterfall is half as tall.

I could add an option to take multiple FFTs with the same data, sliding a window along the data, so the waterfall would be longer. You'd be re-using the same data across multiple FFTs, but it still might be useful. I've been considering adding this anyway, maybe that's a good idea for the next release?  Hey, your CPU isn't warm enough, let me fix that for you 

[skeezix]

Using a large air-cooler on the CPU now and it can handle Crysis, barely.