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Dead Air
Dead Air is a logbook of measured receiver activity: RF levels, demodulated audio and event timing, with optional environmental readings. Use it to investigate interference, monitor an interesting channel and retain observations for later review.
The Halloween name is playful. It does not detect ghosts, spirits or entities. A signal or audio change is an observation, not an explanation of its cause.
- Open Dead Air from the dashboard list.
- On Spectrum, select the frequency and demodulator appropriate to the signal.
- Stay on one channel and let the baseline settle. Retuning or changing gain changes the measurement conditions.
- On Events, choose sensitivity or use Mark Event to record an observation yourself. Automatic steady-channel detection pauses during sweeps.
- Check Review for saved events and clips. The (i) button explains each tab.
RF and audio levels are relative dBFS, not calibrated antenna-input dBm or field strength. Antenna, gain and tuning affect them. A manual mark records your action rather than an automatic detection.
Session journals are saved under /orcsdr/dead_air/session_<id>.jsonl when SD storage is available. Check saved, failed and lost counters rather than assuming every visible event was saved.
Event-linked receiver WAV clips retain approximately five seconds before and after an event under /orcsdr/dead_air/clips/. Review supports selecting, replaying and verifying available clips. File verification checks integrity, not the sound's origin or meaning. Microphone recording is separate, opt-in and off by default; consider nearby people before enabling it.
ENV III is optional. Missing environmental hardware does not prevent RF observation. Record antenna, frequency, gain and surrounding conditions when comparing sessions.
Unmodified 1280 x 720 device PNGs from COM17 on October 26, 2026, following the v0.5.0-beta.1 WebBurner installation. This set illustrates controls and session state, not validation of every detector or recording path. No automatic event or saved clip is shown.
Session time, receiver levels, logging status and recent events.
Tune the receiver, select a demodulator and inspect the spectrum and waterfall. Sweeps visit one channel at a time, not all frequencies simultaneously.
Measured demodulated-audio envelope, peak, level and baseline. This is not speech recognition.
Optional ENV III temperature, humidity and pressure. No sensor is connected here, so readings are unavailable. Device motion refers to the Tab5 itself.
Sensitivity controls, recent events and Mark Event. This session has no events and its audio baseline is warming up.
Session storage and event-linked clips. Receiver audio and optional room-microphone recordings are separate. No clips exist in this captured session.
Authenticated RTL_UI OPEN DEAD_AIR opens the dashboard. Read-only RTL_DEAD_AIR STATUS reports its state. See Serial Command Reference.