The principles of Scanning - Part 2

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Again courtesy Milairman.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCANNING VHF and UHF (Part 2 - SOFTWARE)

With the advent of computers the days of listening to the scanner and trying to write everything down are fortunately now past. I say fortunately because even for the experienced it was an error prone process. In recent years the scanner manufacturers have released the raw radio CPU control codes and as a result some enterprising program writers have filled what was an obvious gap by producing 'logging' software.

What follows is by definition a jaundiced view, skewed no doubt by experience. All I can say is that this particular methodology works for me.
Let us divide our task into small segments.

1. Getting frequencies, text fields and settings into the scanner.
No matter whether you go down the long route of .txt files, .csv files, rich text files and probably the most popular way via .xls files you need a means of getting your collected frequencies into your scanner. What follows is specific to my set-up but some overall points are worth emphasising. Firstly and most importantly once the correct data entry for any particular channel has been made then you never actually have to 'type it in' again. So it avoids transcription errors and transposition errors. How many times have you seen apologetic e-mails on groups saying oops I meant 233.5750 and not 233.5000. All such pitfalls are avoided by adopting a methodical approach.
Inset below is a screenshot of the main ARC5000 Input sheet. Note many of the columns are 'self completing' by clicking one of the options so that makes for a great deal less typing [and hence errors]. Suffice it to say that subject to the limitations of field length for the Text input everything else is straightforward on the basis that you are capable of typing accurate frequencies into the required column

Note it is quite an easy process to set up a .xls file whereby the heading on the ARC5000 columns exactly match those on the .xls. So its a case of creating a series of such files, then a copy and paste operation will complete all the details on the ARC5000 bank program input sheet as above. So in thoery such an input sheet can be completed with a single [select all] copy and paste from the appropriate .xls sheet.
I'll not go into the detail of all the various column settings but what you see above shows only about half of the actual columns that can [not must] be completed. This software is specifically designed for the AR5000 radio but at least it gives you an idea of what is possible.
So save your completed bank entry, then run ARC5000, DELETE the bank you propose to refill [the reason for this being that if there are more entries in the existing bank than your new one only the number of entries in your new bank will overwrite the ones in the old one].
2. RADIO CONTROL.
Unfortunately the software [ARC5000] never extended to providing a logging facility which seems a crying shame but there you go. So we need to be able to 'control' the radio so that we can use a logging facility giving in basic terms TIME, FREQUENCY, TEXT. The resultant output is auto-logged to a nominated file. Here we need to consider the 'logging' software available and again strictly from a personal point of view Ar5 does the trick. Pasted below is the output from a typical logfile:-
Scan Started at 22:16:51 320 On 14/7/2004

Time ms Freq SigByte dBm ChannelNum Text

08:03:54 490 231.825 2 -112 200 2-11 AUX
08:04:02 840 362.125 2 -112 507 RAMROD
08:04:09 590 362.125 3 -111 507 RAMROD
08:04:16 840 362.125 2 -112 507 RAMROD
08:04:36 180 362.125 3 -111 507 RAMROD
08:04:51 780 362.125 2 -112 507 RAMROD
08:04:58 530 231.825 8 -111 200 2-11 AUX
08:06:25 260 231.825 2 -112 200 2-11 AUX
The essential columns are Time, Freq and Text. The actual file produced is in .csv format but is auto-imported in MS Excel for ease of manipulation. I use a macro which deletes the unwanted columns and formats what will become the daily log sheet so that we then get output that looks per below:-
08:03:54 231.8250 2-11 AUX
08:04:02 362.1250 RAMROD
08:04:09 362.1250 RAMROD
08:04:16 362.1250 RAMROD
08:04:36 362.1250 RAMROD
08:04:51 362.1250 RAMROD
08:04:58 231.8250 2-11 AUX
08:06:25 231.8250 2-11 AUX
Once the Macro has been written this operation takes only a single keystroke. So we have the bare bones of a log but no entries thus far.
3.RECORDING SOFTWARE
Here we have more of a choice of suitable software so its a case of personal preference. RecAllPro seems to be the audio recording program of choice amongst many UK monitors. Its is a PC based 'voice activated' sound recorder. It's most important {censored} is that it records the time that each tiny segment is recorded. TIME is the common link between our log file and our audio recordings.

Apart from the obvious one or two points are worth noting. The sampling rate and the CODEC used. 8KHz whilst being far from stereo quality suffices to make the audio understandable. MPeg Layer-3 format is very much more compressed that the standard Microsoft PCM mode. Using the standard above it is possible to record 8 mins of audio on a 1.44Mb floppy disk and still have space left over for the log file.
In many ways the most important data is the date and time. If for example we compare the time shown above with a log file from the same session it is possible and indeed essential that we can tie a tiny segment of audio to a single log entry. Basically we know who said what to whom and when. That is all logs do when you think about it. Nothing more, nothing less, though the degree of detail in your log under the 'Comments' section is a matter of personal choice.

CONCLUSION
We can input accurate frequencies, program a bank of say 100 entries in less than 2 minutes, set the radio scanning, record the audio and log the 'hits' to a log file. Further we can ply or replay the audio at any time after it has been recorded which avoids the requirement to be sat there listening to scanners all day. The frequency and Text we have entered into our original .xls sheet never gets retyped once it has been entered correctly which leads to, in theory anyway, zero errors.
I realise that the foregoing is very specific to a particular radio set-up but the general principles apply. I hope this has gone some way to explaining how, once you have the software, accurate logs are easily produced.
LINKS:-
Below please find the links to the various urls which distribute the above software:-

ARC5000 Radio Programming and Control Software:- http://www.butel.nl/
Ar5 Radio Control, Programming and Logging :- http://www.ar5.ndo.co.uk/
RecAllPRO Audio Recording Software :- http://www.sagebrush.com/recpro