Here is an idea that Olivia developers might care to consider. People often remark that it's difficult to set up the right parameters when receiving Olivia signals. There are potentially eight possible tone settings to choose from (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 tones) and five possible bandwidths (125, 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz) -- a total of 40 possible combinations -- making it almost impossible to choose the right combination before the signal disappears.
Out of these 40 possible tone/bandwidth combinations, there are probably up to 8 that are in popular use: 4/250, 4/500, 8/250, 8/500, 8/1000, 16/500, 16/1000 and 32/1000. Even so, narrowing the choice down to these 8 still takes too long. What is needed is a simple way of indicating which combination is in use at the start of transmission. This is where we can make use of the capability to display text characters in the waterfall. If we allocate a code for each tone/bandwidth combination, and display that code as text in the waterfall immediately before transmitting the Olivia signal, it will be possible to set up the correct parameters very quickly, in time to decode the signal. A possible coding scheme could be as in the table below. The most popular combinations are indicated with asterisks. Each code is preceded by the letters "OL-" (for Olivia), to identify the mode. So, for an 8/500 signal, you would see the characters "OL-12" in the waterfall before the Olivia signal starts. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OL-Code Tones / Bandwidth OL-00 2 125 OL-01 2 250 OL-02 2 500 OL-03 2 1000 OL-04 2 2000 OL-05 4 125 OL-06 4 250 *** OL-07 4 500 *** OL-08 4 1000 OL-09 4 2000 OL-10 8 125 OL-11 8 250 *** OL-12 8 500 *** OL-13 8 1000 *** OL-14 8 2000 OL-15 16 125 OL-16 16 250 OL-17 16 500 *** OL-18 16 1000 *** OL-19 16 2000 OL-20 32 125 OL-21 32 250 OL-22 32 500 OL-23 32 1000 *** OL-24 32 2000 OL-25 64 125 OL-26 64 250 OL-27 64 500 OL-28 64 1000 OL-29 64 2000 OL-30 128 125 OL-31 128 250 OL-32 128 500 OL-33 128 1000 OL-34 128 2000 OL-35 256 125 OL-36 256 250 OL-37 256 500 OL-38 256 1000 OL-39 256 2000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This idea could even be extended to other modes, substituting a different code in place of "OL". I believe that Olivia is greatly under-utilized because of the difficulty in choosing the correct tone/bandwidth parameters when receiving a signal. Being able to select the parameters quickly by reading the code in the waterfall should go a long way to promoting more Olivia activity. Comments anyone? -- 73 Ian, G3NRW
