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qttinysa

Desktop front end for the tinySA and tinySA Ultra spectrum analysers

What it does

Controls a tinySA over USB and plots its output on a desktop screen: live spectrum with markers and peak tracking, waterfall, trace maths and averaging, band presets, and export of the captured traces. Instrument settings that are several button presses on the device are controls on a window here.

Why you would want it

Same argument as NanoVNA-Saver and the same instrument philosophy: a genuinely useful analyser behind a two-inch screen. Hunting a spurious emission, checking a transmitter's harmonics, or finding what is desensitising a receiver all involve staring at a display and moving markers, and the difference in usable screen area is the difference between doing it and giving up.

Before it will work

A tinySA or tinySA Ultra on USB and access to its serial port -- the dialout group again. Know the input power limit of your model before connecting it to anything transmitting: this is the instrument that is most often destroyed on its first day.

How it installs

  • apt: qttinysa

Known problems

AHRL unpacks this into /usr/local/src and runs it in place from a generated wrapper (inventory unit 88); Debian packages it properly, so this is the packaged version. The tinySA has a hard maximum input level and exceeding it damages the front end permanently -- an attenuator between transmitter and instrument is not optional. Trace data is only as trustworthy as the instrument's own calibration, which is not a laboratory standard.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

Ian Jefferson, G4IXT. GitHub issues at the URL above.

Source: catalog/packages/qttinysa.yaml