The RF|Scout solution consists of:

- the RFS-Node (a piece of hardware that is to be installed at the location of interest),
- an Internet connection to the outside world for the RFS-node. It will collect its IP adress from your DHCP server. Thats it.
- power from a PoE (802.3af) compliant switch or 
- an  optional PoE Injector (don't forget to include in your order if you need one)
- an RF|Scout user agreement (a subscription)

* None: gebruiker heeft tijdelijk geen toegang
** Hotlink: tijdelijk toegekende toegang (gast engineer, instelbaar 1-7 dagen)

een typisch scenario zou kunnen zijn:
Owner: theater directeur (contractpartner)
Admin: hoofd techniek, hfd geluid
Officer: toneelmeester, stage/zaalmanager
Tech: elke technicus
Hotlink: gast technicus

Short? no.

Long: "RF|Scout is not optimised for Smartphones due to the information density required"

RF|Scout is optimised for use on any laptop, desktop, NUC, as well as all Tablet style touch things.

The supplied antena is designed for operation between 400 MHz - 1 GHz. Outside of these points the antenna receives alright, bt look at it like an indication if you have clear spectrum or not, its not really linear anymore. An antenna covering the whole range of RF|Scout (roughly 30-3000MHz) is complex and very expensive. BUT... the RFS-Node has a standard SMA connector, so if you want you are most welcome to change to another antenna.

Behind an Antenna Distribution unit...
...works fine, and RF|Scout the literately "sees" exactly the same as your receivers do! BEWARE: make sure you connect the RF|S-node to an output (!) of the distro. Do not accidently connect to the distro's input (where you would connect its antenne), as it may carry a power-supply-voltage for active antenna's. For various reasons RFS-Node's are not protected against DC on the antenna input, and its likely the RF|S-node will have to return to the Mothership for repair.

OK, the nost important thing is: you did see it! Therefor whatever it may be, your biggest achievement is you do know now you better avoid that piece of spctrum.

If you really want to know more about that UFA*, its puzzle time. You can often start recognising signals by its frequency, bandwidth and amplitude of the signal. If its constant or intermittent or modulating is another hint. you can browse registers of local governement bodies, or maybe you can demodulate the signal and listen in, or get someone in with a professional spectrum analyser. It really can be anything: from a local ham-radio guy to an experimental broadcast from a big ticket Telecom, from a freak spurious emitting LED wall that was pushed in this afternoon, to a bad BNC connector on a hot SDI-cable. Or intermodulation.....

A Frequency Coordinator is a person that does these things every day for a living, and who, besides bringing way more expensive measurement equipment, brings in lots of experience and knowledge. For 98% of daily productions in live, broadcast and other events this is surely not required and this is exactly where RF|Scout comes in as a low cost, general tool to have a good understanding of what is going on, and to take necessary steps to have a pefect show. Big ticket production? More transmitters, Live broadcast? Difficult circumstances? Bad previous experience? Drop us a mail for expert RF Coördination services, from us or one of our expert friends around the globe.

*UFA = Unidentified Frequency Anomaly :-)

Well, lets start with what is the same! RF|Scout bottom line is a tool to look at the RF spectrum, just like all spectrum analyzers from € 150 to € 80.000+ by Rohde & Schwarz, Agilent, RF Explorer, Wavetower, Aaronia, Anritsu* and so on. Just as an illustration: a somewhat serious analyzer for a professional frequency coordinator will typically set you back somewhere in the € 5.000-15.000 region, because of the (combination of), speed, span, and accuracy.

The difference:
RF|Scout is an application, a service, a subscription. It's meant for universal access and easy to use daily production work, in the cloud, and for your own and your guest engineers at your venue.
The RF|Scout package is set up around a universal access database, super easy to use, clear information by simplicity and a well thought out Markers system, historical scan logs etc. RF|Scout  has no ambition whatsoever to be a replacement for a good (expensive) Spectrum Analyzer. Although we must admit it does do a pretty good job :-)

*All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement, but personally we do like a lot of these toys!