README for the "SpecLab/frequencies" directory
------------------------------------------------

This directory may contain frequency lists, which will be read by Spectrum Lab.
To keep the installation archive small, frequency lists are *not* contained
in the original Spectrum Lab installation.

Instead, you need to download (or write) frequency lists yourself.
The files 'default.txt' and 'local_fm_radio.txt' are small test databases
 with a few VLF- and LF-transmitters, which will most likely be outdated;
 and a few 'local' FM radio stations near the location of SL's author.


A list of suitable file formats, and where to find them, follows further below.


http://www.vlf.it/trond2/list.html
--------------------------------------------------------
  A wealth of information about ELF, VLF, and LF transmitters.
  Some of Trond's info was copied into the file default.txt
  but only those transmitters which could be received in Germany
  with an indoor loop antenna in 2009.



http://www.eibispace.de/  
--------------------------------------------------------
  A list of shortwave broadcasters, with time schedules .
  Look for the frequency list in text file form, SORTED BY FREQUENCY.
  The original file was freq-a09.txt, size about 700 kByte.
  Spectrum lab can parse any file which uses the same format, for example:


kHz           Time(UTC) Days  ITU Station                Lang. Target   Remarks
================================================================================
198           0600-0630       POL Polskie Radio            D   Eu


http://www.hfcc.org
--------------------------------------------------------
  A similar shortwave "operational schedule".
  The format is totally incompatible (compared to EiBi's),
  but it can also be loaded into Spectrum Lab.
  However, SL only reads a few of the many data columns;
  most columns (for example the operational schedule itself)
  is completely ignored in the current version (07/2009) .



Note that the frequency (in kHz, MHz, or Hz) may contain fractional values
(using a DECIMAL POINT, never a DECIMAL COMMA... not even on a German PC).

Depending on what can be loaded from the file, Spectrum Lab will attempt
to show the stations callsign (as in default.txt), or (if the database doesn't
contain a callsign or similar) the ITU country code, etc.

For plain text filed with space-padded data columns, it's very important
that the "headline" (which begins with the string "kHz" or "MHz") is 
precisely aligned with all following "data lines".
Spectrum Lab tries to analyse the headline, and looks for tokens in that line
to parse the numeric data later. Because of this, the column sequence doesn't
matter too much (except for the frequency column, which must be the first).

Recognized tokens (with double quotes only for clarity) :

 "kHz"       : Frequency column; all frequencies in kHz
 "MHz"       : Frequency column; all frequencies in MHz 
 "Freq/Hz"   : Frequency column; all frequencies in Hz
 ";FREQ "    : Frequency column; HFCC style

 "Call"      : Callsign or station ID, shown in the spectrum screen
 "ITU"       : ITU country code, like "D"=Germany, used in the EiBi lists.
 "ADM"       : Similar(?) for the HFCC database .
 "Act"       : Short string indicating the activity.
               If the fist letter is an 'N', Spectrum Lab will hide
               the Station Frequency Marker (very handy, you don't need
               to delete an entry from the database just to hide it).
 "Station"   : Short descriptive text, or station name

 "Locator"   : Maidenhead grid locator ("square"), loaded but not used yet.
 "LOC"       : Transmitter location ID in the HFCC list format. Ignored.

 "Remarks"   : Information like "last heard by xyz on 2009-06-30"

 "Time(UTC)" : Speciality for the EiBi databases: activity times (of day)
 "Days"      : Speciality for the EiBi databases: activity days (of week)
 "Lang."     : Speciality for the EiBi databases: Program language
 "Target"    : Speciality for the EiBi databases: Target area like "Eu"





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