Meters

Meters

OpenHPSDR Zeus shows three separate meter surfaces and an Overdrive LED. Which ones are visible depends on whether you are receiving or transmitting.

S-Meter (RX)

Lives in the S-METER · RX panel on the right column.

• Scale: -127 dBm (S0) → -13 dBm (S9+60), a 114 dB span.
• S-unit ladder labels at S0 · S1 · S3 · S5 · S7 · S9 · +10 · +20 · +40 · +60. Each S-unit is 6 dB.
• Numeric read-out on the right shows the live value in dBm, e.g. -99 dBm and the matching S-unit (e.g. S5).
• Peak-hold tick rises instantly and decays linearly to zero over 1500 ms.
• The data source is post-AGC — the meter reflects what the AGC actually delivered, not the raw RF.

Power meter and SWR (TX)

While MOX or TUNE is active the S-Meter panel switches to transmit mode:

• Power — forward watts (linear scale, 0–100 W typical on Hermes Lite 2; configurable).
• SWR chip — colour-coded:
  • Default: under 2.0
  • Amber: 2.0 – 3.0
  • Red: 3.0 and above (consider retuning)
• MIC chip — current mic level in dBFS, hidden on RX.

When you return to RX the display flips back to the S-meter immediately.

TX Stage Meters

A separate panel along the bottom row, to the right of the logbook. Nine taps along the WDSP TX chain (TXA), in chain order:

Meter	What it shows
ALC (top, prominent pair)	Post-ALC peak (dBFS) and ALC gain reduction (dB). The marquee TX clipping indicator.
MIC	Post-panel-gain mic level entering WDSP TXA (TXA_MIC_PK).
EQ	Post-equaliser peak. Bypassed by default — renders dimmed until enabled.
LVLR	Post-Leveler peak. Same as EQ while the Leveler is disabled.
CFC	Continuous-Frequency-Compressor peak + gain reduction. Bypassed by default.
COMP	Post-compressor peak. Bypassed by default.
ALC (second row)	Post-ALC peak — the key clipping indicator for SSB distortion.
ALC GR	ALC gain reduction. Sustained values over 10 dB mean the input is over-driving the limiter.
OUT	Final TX peak — what's leaving WDSP for the radio's DUC.

Reading the bars

• Level bars (dBFS) — scale -30 dB to +12 dB. Target tick at -6 dBFS (amber). Danger tick at 0 dBFS (clipping).
• Gain-reduction bars (CFC, ALC GR) — scale 0 – 25 dB. Background zones tint the bar:
  • 0 – 3 dB — quiet (amber wash)
  • 3 – 10 dB — healthy (green wash)
  • 10+ dB — overdrive (red wash) Danger tick at 10 dB.
• Peak-hold — held value rendered as a 2 px amber tick. Decays at half-scale-per-second.
• Bypass sentinel — WDSP returns -400 dBFS when a stage is bypassed. The client treats anything below -200 dBFS as bypassed and renders an em-dash (—) instead of a bar, plus dims the row to ~55 % opacity.

Each meter row carries a tooltip explaining what it taps and what to watch for.

Mic Meter (transport bar)

A compact mic-level meter sits in the bottom transport bar, just right of the Mute button.

• Scale: -60 to 0 dBFS.
• The top few dB are tinted red — peaks living there are clipping.
• Hovering shows a tooltip breaking down the raw input + MIC-gain slider contribution.

Overdrive LED

A small indicator in the TX Stage Meters header.

• Green / clear — nothing tripped recently.
• Red — at least one of these triggered in the last ~200 ms:
  • Mic clipping (≥ -1 dBFS)
  • ALC limiting (> 10 dB GR)
  • CFC limiting (> 10 dB GR)

Hover the LED for a tooltip listing which condition tripped.

Mobile layout

The logbook and TX stage meters are hidden on narrow screens to keep the panadapter readable. The S-meter and mic meter remain visible.