Android SWR plotter

EA4GLI

Ray K9DUR's SWRPlotter6P is a great piece of windows software, very useful to plot your SWR for different antennas. With a TX unlocked 6500/6700 and modifying the BandLimit.xml file you can even plot outside Ham frequencies to find where an antenna resonates and make the necessary adjustments. 

You can find that utilitiy as well as any others here http://rnaconsultingservices.com/k9dur/smartsdr_utilities.html

Don't forget to donate if you can. Thanks Ray for the software.

One interesting thing that you can do with the Flex radio is to connect with a laptop if you are within WiFI range and check SWR and well as plot the antenna while you are outside, by the antenna site. This allows you to make the necessary changes without going back and forth to the radio shack.

Laptops are not that portable when you are carrying a bunch of tools and have dirty hands from making antenna maintenance, and the nice one that I have is not ideal to take to the yard where it can get dirty and even damage.

All of this got me thinking that it would be great if there was an Android app that can connect to the your Flex through WiFi and just present you with SWR measuring tools. A simple interface where you can select Band and Antenna and engage the Tune button. Maybe allow you to set the power for tune or limit it to 5w max. Then give you a SWR readout. It could even be really fancy and plot SWR like K9DUR's application or SWR have memories, etc...

Maybe some of you android/apple/programming geniuses can come up with the app!!

Thanks!

Bob K8RC

One way I've done this is to set up the hamshack computer that you normally use for the FLEX as a VNC server (http://www.uvnc.com/ ) and use one of the Android VNC clients to connect to the shack machine.

You are then operating the shack machinery remotely from your phone/tablet.

There's quite a bit of bandwidth overhead in doing it this way so you'll do better if you minimize SmartSDR so the spectrum and waterfall displays are not visible.

You can then run Ray's SWRPlotter as you normally would from your phone.

Have fun & Happy New Year.

73,

Bob, K8RC

EA4GLI

Thanks for the reply Bob. I can use a Windows tablet running Win8 that will allow me to also run those apps. But I was thinking from the perspective of a very simple app that can easily be used with your cellphone with functionality limited to SWR measuring. 

Bob K8RC

Using a Windows tablet to run SmartSDR & SWRPlotter is NOT the same. With the exception of the Microsoft Surface, most are too under powered to run the programs directly.

VNC turns your mobile device into a remote monitor, mouse & keyboard for your hamshack machine. SmartSDR & SWRPlotter are executing on the hamshack machine. You're using your hand-held device to look in on them.

All of this is done with VNC client apps that already exist for both Android & iOS.
When you have to invent something new, you usually leave "simple" behind.

Walt - KZ1F

Just to clarify for me, is the application one that allows user to select the appropriate bands to test, freq step (100hz, 500hz,1khz) and the app will put a Tune signal on each freq under test, record the SWR and, for each band, graph the resultant SWR against frequencies? It could e en use cwx to do a quick Id after each... or not...an option for the user to choose.

An android would have more than enough umpf to do that natively.

I did just see Ray's web site....good job Ray!

Andrew VK5CV