Wiki SDR SA PRO
The Journal tab
PRO The Journal tab shows the Scanner’s alarms written to the event log right inside the app: day by day, with filters by frequency, level and reason, and with export of the filtered rows to a CSV file. It only reads the log files — the Scanner writes them when the “Event log” box is checked on its tab. This page covers where the rows come from, how to pick a day, the filters, what a list row holds and where the files lie.
Where the tab is 0.9.58
- The Journal tab sits in the side panel after the Scanner and Calibration tabs. You can also open it from the View → Journal menu or with Ctrl+7.
- Like the rest of PRO, the tab is there in every run: SDR SA PRO opens only with a valid key (see What SDR SA PRO is).
- When the window holds several stations, each has its own log, and the tab shows the log of the active station (see below).
Where the rows come from
The Scanner writes the event log only while the Event log box is checked on its tab (see Event log): an events-YYYY-MM-DD.csv file per UTC day, a row per alarm, up to 1000 rows a day, the last 30 days. The Journal tab reads those same files.
- It only reads. The tab changes and removes nothing in the log. Switching the log on and off is done on the Scanner tab.
- Alarms only. The log holds alarms, not every detection. A recording from a file and the demo signal give no alarms, so there are no rows from them.
- Old files are read by their own header: what they lack stays empty in the row. For example, files written before 0.9.58 have no
videocolumn. - The row about the daily limit (reason
limit) is not an event and does not appear in the list.
Day
- The day list
- The days for which the folder has a log file, newest first; at start the newest is chosen. The day is in UTC, as in the file name. A line below the list says so: The day is in UTC, as in the file; the files are in … — with the full path of the folder.
- Reload
- Reads the list of days and the chosen day again. The tab does not refresh by itself: alarms that came after the day was read show up after Reload. If the file of the chosen day has gone, the newest day is taken.
When there is nothing to read or reading failed, the line below the counter says why: The journal is empty: … has no event files yet., There is no journal file for …., The journal for … could not be read: … or File … is not an event journal: there is no header.
Filters
- from, MHz and to, MHz
- The bounds of the frequency of the row’s centre, in megahertz.
- level from, dB
- The least level in dB above the local floor, not in dBm. A row without a level does not pass this condition.
- reason
guard,watch,kindorvideo— as they are written in the file; the beginning of the word is enough, and upper and lower case are not told apart.
Zero or empty means no condition; the hint below the fields says so too. A value is applied with Enter or by leaving the field; Esc restores the previous one. The filters act on the chosen day and are not saved between runs.
The list
Above the list is Showing N of M: N — the rows after the filters, M — the rows in the day’s file. When some row could not be read, · unread K is added. The last row the Scanner has not finished writing is counted this way too: the day’s file may be written at that very moment. When the day’s file has no rows at all, it says No rows; when the filters have left none, it says Showing 0 of M.
A list row is the same event as in the log:
- the first line holds the UTC time (date and time to the millisecond), the centre frequency in megahertz, the width in kilohertz and the level in dB above the floor; a dash — no level;
- the second line, separated by “·”, holds the alarm number No. N, the reason (guard, watch, type or video), the name and type of the range by the frequency table, channel N, activity area for such a row, and video PAL or video NTSC when the video channel search confirmed video.
The second line is green when video was confirmed, red for guard, grey otherwise. From one day the tab shows up to 5000 rows — more than the Scanner writes in a day.
Export and folder
- To a CSV file…
- Writes the filtered rows of the chosen day to a file you name — with the same columns and in the same form as the event log, in UTF-8 with a byte-order mark. The button is active when the list has rows. The line below the counter says Rows written: N — … or CSV not written — ….
- Open the folder
- Opens the folder with the log files in Windows Explorer.
Where the files lie
The log lies in the Scanner folder of its station inside the SDR SA PRO data folder. For the program installed from a package this is Documents\SDR SA PRO\scanner for the main station and Documents\SDR SA PRO\scanner\stations\<station> for the others. Which station is the main one and how the folder name is made — see The Scanner on several stations. The tab states the exact path below the day list.
Limits
- The tab only reads; the log switch is on the Scanner tab.
- One day at a time, and the day is in UTC.
- The tab does not refresh by itself: new rows come after Reload.
- The log holds only alarms from the air, not every detection.
- The filters are not saved between runs.
- The tab has not yet been tried with files the Scanner wrote on the live air.