We used to be totally deaf to anything happening on the band; we were only aware of what we were currently tuned to. This made it tough to find folks to talk to. A lot of trolling about, hoping to catch someone as they were calling CQ.

Now adays we have this new and wonderful display available on a lot of the newer rigs. It goes by various names like a bandscope or waterfall display.

What exactly is a waterfall display?
What am I looking at?
What does it all mean?
How do I read this thing?

The goal of this video is to provide answers to these questions.

Time Markers for Your Convenience

00:05 Introductory Comments
01:27 What is a "Waterfall Display" in a nutshell?
01:39 Background: Introduction to a Spectrum Analyzer
02:18 Spectrum Analyzer: A Quick Tour
02:29 How to tell it what frequencies to display.
03:33 Bandscope/Waterfall Display: A Tour
03:49 Above the Horizontal Centerline
04:09 Horizontal Axis
04:12 SPAN
05:10 CENTER FREQUENCY
05:23 VERTICAL AXIS
06:04 The "Ghost" Signals
06:55 BELOW the Horizontal Centerline
07:15 The Horizontal Axis
07:22 The Vertical Axis
07:29 The Signal Data Flow
07:39 The 3rd "D": Amplitude
08:44 Bringing it all together...
09:36 Final Comments and ToodleOots