NOESISUser Guide
Guide/NOESISReader/RF & Synthesis

RF / Radio workspace

The RF / Radio workspace explores SDR spectral surveys: a wideband panorama with nine linked views, frequency and band selection, sweep navigation, baselines, peak tracking and raw IQ. Every view shares the master cursor.

Ctrl+R9 linked viewsPer-window acquisition time
RF / Radio workspace: sidebar, panorama with age strip, and the view tabs.
RF / Radio workspace: sidebar, panorama with age strip, and the view tabs.

Open the workspace#

Press Ctrl+R, choose RF / Radio → RF / Radio workspace, or pick it in the viewer's view selector. Recordings without an RF survey show what is missing; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth RSSI remain available elsewhere.

Sweeps are sequential

Each frequency in a sweep was measured at a different time. The panorama shows the most recent window available at the cursor for each frequency, and the age strip beneath it shows when each was acquired (bright = recent, dark = old, hatched = not observed).

Panorama#

GestureAction
ClickSelect a frequency (drives readouts, sonification and the HUD).
Shift-dragSelect a band.
WheelZoom the frequency axis around the pointer.
Right-drag or Ctrl-dragPan the frequency axis.
HoverReadout: frequency, power and acquisition time of the window under the pointer.

Peak labels mark local maxima above the noise floor plus the peak threshold.

Survey summary and RF data quality Read-only

Device, tuner, coverage, sweeps (complete / total, windows per sweep), mean sweep duration, resolution, sample rate, window span, scan mode, direct-sampling modes, gain and ppm, dropped samples, IQ snippet count, power unit and the timing note. RF data quality lists sweeps, incomplete sweeps, missing and duplicate windows, skipped regions, frequency coverage and bin spacing, with warnings in amber. A stream selector appears when the session has more than one receiver.

Frequency view Span, zoom, selected frequency
  • Type the view's low and high frequency (suffixes such as 433.92M, 1.2G, 500k are accepted).
  • Full span, Zoom band and log f (logarithmic frequency axis).
  • Selected — type an exact frequency. The line below shows its power at the cursor and the acquisition age, or that it was not recorded.
Band Band tracks
  1. Shift-drag a band on the panorama (it is shown in the Band section).
  2. Tick the metrics to compute: integrated, max, mean, noise floor, occupancy, peaks (integrated and occupancy are ticked by default).
  3. Optionally type a label, then click Add band track (or RF / Radio → Add selected band as timeline track).

Each metric becomes a DERIVED timeline track with one value per sweep, timed at the midpoint of the band's acquisition span. Band tracks are ordinary streams: use them in Correlation, Impulse response, Constellation, Lens, Fingerprint and compositions. Click a band in the list to reselect it; ✕ removes it. Clear band clears the selection.

Sweep Follow cursor or fixed
  • Follow cursor — views show the latest data at the cursor.
  • Selected sweep — views show one sweep; ◀ / ▶ (or RF / Radio → Previous / Next sweep) step through sweeps.
  • The sweep list jumps to any sweep. In fixed mode a summary shows its start, end, duration, windows received / planned, missing windows and completeness.
Baseline For delta views and normalization
BaselineBuilt from
No baseline—
First complete sweepThe first sweep with every window.
Mean of sweepsAll sweeps in the selection, or the whole session.
RollingThe N sweeps before the cursor (N 1–200).
Selected time rangeSweeps within the timeline selection.
Saved: nameA baseline saved earlier with Save (stored in the project).

The line below describes the active baseline.

Display Amplitude, delta, waterfall, colour
SettingOptions
AmplitudedB, linear power, log10 power
Deltadifference (dB), ratio (linear), z-score (needs ≥ 3 baseline sweeps)
Waterfallabsolute power, minus baseline, minus row median
Rowsone row per sweep, or real acquisition time
Colourinferno, viridis, gray
dB rangecolour scale minimum and maximum
peak threshold dB3–40: peak labels, peak tracks
occupancy margin dB1–30: occupancy above the noise floor
Peak / carrier tracks DERIVED table

Up to 40 tracked peaks: frequency, mean power, persistence, drift (Hz/s) and ↑ appeared / ↓ disappeared marks. Click a row to select its frequency and seek to its first appearance.

Visualizer compatibility

Every visualizer marked ● compatible with the RF stream or ○ with the reason it is not.

View tabs#

Waterfall Tab 1

Frequency against sweep (or real acquisition time) with power as colour. Click to seek to that row's time and select that frequency. Layer peak tracks draws the peak tracks in the waterfall's own coordinates.

Scan ribbon Tab 2
Scan ribbon: every tuning window drawn at its real acquisition time.
Scan ribbon: every tuning window drawn at its real acquisition time.

Frequency against actual acquisition time: each tuning window is its own rectangle, so sweep progression, gaps and retune timing are visible.

Occupancy Tab 3
Frequency occupancy map.
Frequency occupancy map.

How often each frequency exceeds the window noise floor plus the occupancy margin.

Spectral delta Tab 4
Spectral delta against the chosen baseline.
Spectral delta against the chosen baseline.

The current spectrum against the chosen baseline as difference, ratio or z-score. Original values are kept.

Peak tracks Tab 5
Peak and carrier tracker.
Peak and carrier tracker.

Significant peaks tracked across sweeps: frequency, power, persistence (line width), drift, appearance and disappearance. Click to select a frequency.

Persistence Tab 6
Persistence histogram with stability classes.
Persistence histogram with stability classes.

How often each power level occurred per frequency, with a class strip: S stable, I intermittent, T transient.

Band timeline Tab 7
Band timeline: band tracks and RF features as time series.
Band timeline: band tracks and RF features as time series.

Every RF band track and RF feature series as a small time-series plot with the cursor. Click a name to select the stream.

Feature matrix Tab 8
RF feature matrix: bands and features against time.
RF feature matrix: bands and features against time.

Bands and RF features (rows) against time (columns) to compare many bands at once. Empty cells were not recorded.

IQ Tab 9 — when IQ snippets exist
IQ view of a raw snippet.
IQ view of a raw snippet.

Choose a display — I / Q waveform, IQ constellation, Magnitude, Phase, Instantaneous frequency, Local PSD, Local spectrogram — and a snippet (or Snippet at/before cursor). Instantaneous frequency is withheld for snippets with sample drops.

RF detectors and sonification#

  • RF / Radio → Run RF peak / band detectors runs RF peak appearance / disappearance and RF band power transition; results appear as detected events.
  • RF / Radio → RF spectrum sonification plays the spectrum around the selected frequency on its own bus. See Sonification.
  • The RF readout HUD layer shows RF values over the video. See Layer types.

RF exports#

RF spectrum at the cursor or selected sweep, RF bins of the selected time range, waterfall image (PNG + JSON), occupancy table, peak tracks and raw IQ snippets. See Export formats and the RF CLI commands.

NOESIS · NOESISReader User GuideAn Interdimensional Technology Committee project · interdimensional.tech