Vision™ MX280001A Software Help : General Information : Vision Program Overview
 
Vision Program Overview
The Vision program provides a set of robust signal interferer monitoring menus to monitor, track, identify, capture, and record signal interference. Signal monitoring is also performed by setting masks and limit lines set at selected power levels to check and capture potential interferer power level violations, Some of the menus below are used interactively when monitoring and analyzing.
DB Creator
The DB (Database) Creator provides a menu consisting of user-set base stations, channel setup definitions, and mask definitions used for the Trace Monitor menu and Trace Acquire menu.
See DB Creator.
Trace Acquire
The Trace Acquire menu runs continuously in the background, talking with the target receivers to acquire, store, and archive failed and passing sweep traces in a database located on the remote PC/server. Vision Acquire collects traces from multiple spectrum monitors located at base station sites. The trace collection is periodically configured by the user. Vision Acquire also maintains the database of traces by
archiving them, removing old ones, and compacting and compressing the database. Vision Acquire can be setup to receive email trace-monitoring status notifications and set alarm notifications when a trace fails a set threshold.
See Trace Acquire.
Trace Monitor (Option 400)
The Trace Monitor menu analyzes the database where measurements are collected to show date/time stamped trace information, spectrograms, and intuitive ways to monitor for interference signals.
See Trace Monitor/Trace Viewer.
PoA Locate (Option 401)
The PoA Locate menu performs geo-location for signals of interest. The monitor coordinate area provides the algorithmic region of the suspect signal include the Power of Arrival. Capture live traces from a remote monitor or scroll through to analyze traces from database data while looking at location estimates.
See PoA Locate (Option 401).
TDoA Locate (Option 401)
The TDoA menu supports three active monitors to perform a Time Difference of Arrival measurement and identify a stationary or moving target’s signal longitude and latitude coordinates. Use a user-selected map to provide a geo-locate approximation of the interferers signal location. Averaging can be set to pinpoint an interferer location. Setup the TDoA program to monitor interferer capture settings to provide correlation results. Mobile tracking can be performed using an spectrum analyzer in a car, drive the area, and observe the results when parked. For site planning, use the TDoA Locate menu with the provided Simulator program to setup monitoring parameters and demonstrate interferer scenarios.
See TDoA Locate (Option 401).
Port Scanner (Option 407)
The Port Scanner menu runs as an independent program for rapid scanning multiplexed RF IN ports. Many sweep channels can be monitored and viewed at once in a real time view. Traces can be viewed in tabular view or trace view format. The tabular data provides a user defined set of parameters defined from an Add Channels dialog. The trace parameters set for viewing are user selected from a Table Display Columns list, such as frequency, limits masks, marker and delta markers, live channel power readouts for each channel, pass rate and more. Toggle the tabular defined channels to a trace view and view all the available channel traces simultaneously with the set defined parameters.
See Port Scanner (Option 407).
Scan Viewer
The Scan Viewer menu provides tools for viewing saved .cpm (channel power measurement) files and target receiver measurement files. CPM files created by Port Scanner contain many RF sweep traces that include sweeps at multiple frequency bands and from multiple target receivers. Use Scan Viewer to review all of the traces in multiple views and explore the data as a set.
See Scan Viewer.
Radio
The Radio menu contains the AM/FM Measurements for the target receiver with Option 400 installed. The function “Streaming Audio” is option controlled. It is accessed via the Vision API. Radio uses the Vision API to stream audio from target receiver. If accessing a receiver without Option 400, it will not function. The AM/FM option provides analysis information included AM modulation quality and FM deviation metrics.
See Radio (Option 400).
Occupancy
The Occupancy menu provides tools to set power threshold levels to determine whether a given frequency channel is to be considered occupied. The analysis provides a basis to determine that noise and very low-level signals can be eliminated from the analysis.
See Occupancy.
Cross Polarization
Cross Polarization monitors two antennas measuring the same signal, one turned 90 degrees relative to the other. Determine the difference in receive power between 2 antennas by tuning the position of an antenna for maximum benefit. Cross polarization measurements can be made with a multiport RSM or by using two RSMs.
See Cross Polarization.
Simulator
The monitor simulator is used to demonstrate and practice using Vision. The Simulator responds to the complete sub-set of commands that Vision uses to activate a set of remote spectrum monitors and coordinate their responses to a simulated stationary or moving target. A user selected map is loaded from the Simulator program providing visual tools for geo-locating and tracking the source. You can run multiple active simulators on the same PC with each simulator representing a different monitor in a database. Each simulator can be started with a command line reference to a control file to set the sweep parameters, GPS location, installed options, and other parameters.
See Simulator.