Specan.Chrome is a Google Chrome app that provides a UI for Ashar Farhan's
Sweeperino and
Specan homebrew
RF test devices. Farhan provided a Windows application
specan.exe for the original UI for
those devices, but that was not a cross-platform solution. Specan.Chrome
is intended to be a cross-platform replacement for specan.exe.
These devices use Arduino microcontrollers along with Si570 RF generators and AD8307 RF power meters. The Arduino firmware provides a serial connection that can be used to sweep across frequencies and record the power levels. There is a simple line-oriented serial protocol for starting a sweep with certain parameters and receiving the measurements back. Specan.Chrome uses Chrome's serial API to access the computer's serial port from within a Javascript/HTML application that can run anywhere that Google's Chrome browser can.
To get the code for Specan.Chrome, you can go to
https://github.com/neilmb/specan.chrome and click on the button marked "Clone
or Download". You can either choose to download a zip file or check out the
source code using git (if that's something you know how to do). If you
downloaded a ZIP file, unzip it in some directory.
To install the Chrome application, first install the Chrome browser. Then, within Chrome, go to "More Tools" and choose "Extensions". On that page in the top-right corner is a box for "Developer Mode". After checking that box, you should be able to select a button for "Load unpacked extension...". Then just select the directory containing this code.
Specan.chrome is open-source software and benefits from contributions from the community. Development takes place on Github at http://github.com/neilmb/specan. If you experience any problems or have suggestions for improvement, please file issues there. Pull requests are also most welcome there.
Specan.chrome is Copyright 2016 Neil Martinsen-Burrell [email protected].
Specan.chrome is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Specan.chrome is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Specan.chrome. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.