Narda’s SignalShark Range Designed For Radio Monitoring and Direction-finding

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The SignalShark family from Narda Safety Test Solutions now has been given added support, according to the company, in handling the many challenges involved in effective radio monitoring and direction finding of interference signals. The weatherproof SignalShark Outdoor Unit will primarily take on the job of 24/7 radio monitoring, particularly in the open air. 

Designed to withstand adverse conditions, Narda says the system “delivers precise, absolutely reliable signal detection and localization results, and operates completely autonomously thanks to its Power over Ethernet or solar panel supply.” With its real time bandwidth of 40 MHz, the Outdoor Unit is capable of broadband signal capture and ITU compliant.  

All three models in the SignalShark family use an integrated Windows 10 computer to operate as intelligent sensors, eliminating the need for an additional external PC at the location of use. The measuring receivers pick up the signals with the aid of an omnidirectional or a directional antenna, convert them to VITA49-compatible IQ streams and add high-precision timestamps. These timestamps are used by the Decodio Localizer software to quickly and exactly localize the sources of the captured signals. 

The SignalShark system, comprising one receiver and one antenna (ADFA), supports two methods of direction finding. The sources of the received signals can be reliably localized using TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival) or AOA (Angle of Arrival), and a combination of both principles (hybrid). In hybrid mode, the two methods compensate for each other’s “blind spots.” The physics dictates that TDOA runs into trouble with CW signals, which are something that AOA is particularly good at. AOA, is deficient when it comes to handling short, pulsed signals; TDOA however, excels because of the steep signal slopes, according to the company. 

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