The design and GUI layout of SignalShark is based on customer applications. This can be seen most clearly in the concept of Tasks and Views.
The measurement task of a customer application often consists of several measurements, like finding a signal in the spectrum, measuring its level and drawing it into a map. In most cases, SignalShark can handle a complete workflow in one single task:
• Tasks are represented by a tab on the screen, like a web site within a web browser.
• They encapsulate all measurement parameters and the underlying measurement engine working mode.
• Within a task, all measurements are performed at the same time.
The creation of a task is the prerequisite for being able to perform a measurement at all. To support a wide variety of measurement applications, SignalShark provides several task modes:
• (Scan) Spectrum Mode
This mode supports measuring the spectrum with full frequency span of 8 kHz
up to 8 GHz within one measurement and a maximum measurement speed
of 40 GHz/s.
• RT Spectrum Mode
The Real-Time Spectrum Mode enables real-time spectrum measurements with
a frequency span of up to 40 MHz. This frequency span will be acquired
simultaneously in frequency and gapless in time with 3.125 µs POI.
• Auto DF Mode
The Auto Direction Finding Mode supports control of the automatic DF antennas
and handles the calculation of bearings out of the DF data.
A basic setup is a task created by Narda that enables a measurement to be started quickly and easily. Most of the parameters are already set as commonly used and the needed views are already added to the task. When using an Auto DF Basic Setup for example, only set the frequency and bandwidth, start localization and drive your car – and you are done.
For details about the Basic Setup Tasks see the descriptions in the Add Task menu. With future releases further Basic Setup Tasks will be added.
A predefined setup is a collection of tasks, views and settings. You can save your current settings to create your own setups or use one of the setups provided by Narda.
These setups only ask for some basic settings and then allow an immediate measurement start. LTE, UMTS, GSM, Tetra or PMR for example, only ask for entering fcent. Also, the setups provided by Narda can be modified to your needs and saved as new setups.
Predefined setups can be found in the Setups tab of the Settings menu.
For more information about predefined setups see here.
A view is a window containing a specific visual representation of measurement data. Up to six views can be added to a task and arranged to your personal needs and taste.
The active view is highlighted by a blue frame.
Figure: This example shows the two horizontally split views Spectrum and Spectrogram assigned to the RT Spectrum task.
Table: Relation
between measurement tasks and views.
(The available tasks and views depend on the firmware release and the options
included in your software package.)
|
Measurement Engine or Task Mode |
|||
View |
Spectrum |
RT Spectrum
|
Auto DF |
RT Streaming |
Spectrum |
● |
RT |
● |
– |
Peak Table |
● |
RT |
● |
– |
Spectrogram |
● |
RT |
– |
– |
Persistence |
– |
RT |
– |
– |
Level Meter |
– |
● |
– |
– |
Map |
● |
● |
● |
– |
Bearing |
– |
– |
● |
– |
Vita 49 IQ Streaming |
– |
– |
– |
● |
After adding a task, you may add additional views to that task and rearrange them to your needs. As default each new task opens with a Spectrum view.