If you want a new feature or a change to the software then add your request here.
The trouble with Meteor Scatter, it is totally random and the pings can be very short-lived - strong enough to decode, but very brief in duration. Monitoring 2m over the past few days, I have one SDR Console VFO sat on 144.360 (the MSK144 'calling' frequency) and another as a 'search and pounce' receiver so that I could jump from signal to signal, thereby logging as many stations as possible (I had a third VFO on 144.174 monitoring FT8). The frustrating part is seeing a big, short-lived ping on a different frequency when I am sat on a clear channel. The ability to rewind, say, the last 10 seconds of audio & waterfall would mean that those pings could be anticipated and, hopefully, decoded.
So my idea (bear with me, as the idea is developing as I type) would be a button that would replay/record the past xx seconds without having to go through the setup of waiting for an IQ recording to begin. I know you can save an IQ file with a buffer as it is already implemented. I think, perhaps, I may be looking for a 'quick IQ' record that needs no other configuring after an initial setup for folders, etc. Just a single click and it records the past 10 or so seconds - possibly of just the active receiver. Maybe save as a separate IQ file each time the button is pressed so that the resulting file can be investigated later, which would mean real-time flow and decoding of other VFOs is/are not disturbed. I could, obviously, have recorded the whole spectrum and gone through it later, but that would require a lot of disk space, and time to go through and find each individual ping. Being able to just 'click and record' whatever it was you just saw would be so useful, not only for MS but for other bands/modes too. There must have been many times when you heard something and immediately thought 'I wish I had been able to record that'. With this idea, you could - just by pressing the button.
Hopefully, this makes sense - if not, please dismiss it as the ramblings of a looney suffering from brain fade due to having had 3 young children at home for the majority of the past year
To give you an idea of how busy 2m was over the weekend, I have logged 103 locator squares since 1st Jan. I would think that
I missed another 20-30 squares during the peak of the MS shower.
I've attached a PSK reporter grab of what my SDR station (Airspy HF+ and a 5 ele yagi, beaming South) heard in a 24 hour period from 3rd-4th January on 2m. There were other stations heard that didn't get sent to PSK Reporter as their locator was not sent (an OH7 station springs to mind).
73, and thanks for the amazing software. I hope we all have a better 2021 and well all manage to stay safe and healthy (all five of us had Covid 19 here, a couple of weeks before Christmas, so the main symptoms, etc. were gone by then without anyone requiring medical intervention, thankfully).
Sean Gilbert - G4UCJ IO92ma
E: sean@hfradio.org.uk W: www.hfradio.org.uk
