Playbar

The playbar is at the heart of all operations. JAGUAR LITE is unique in that, in the Green or LIVE mode,  it continuously fills up 8-minute-long playbuffers – you will never miss a station ID again! This 2-MHz-wide buffer is a temporary WAV file located in the recordings folder (PERSEUS). Eight minutes take approximately 3.5 GB. You probably do not need to access that file manually.

Elements of the playbar


The most prominent feature of the playbar is its color which indicates in which mode JAGUAR LITE currently operates in (more on modes below). There are also other elements which are located on the playbar itself.

First on the left, there is a vertical space weather index bar which consists of four colored layers. If you hover the mouse over the space weather index bar, you will see the extended space weather information on the toolbar. The green color indicates normal, yellow unsettled, and red disturbed conditions. The index layers in the bar from top to bottom are: Bz, Planetary K index, Polar K index, and Proton flux.

Vertical space weather index on the left (see red arrow). The extended space weather information is also available
as numeric values, shown on the toolbar: Bz, Planetary A & K indices, Polar A & K indices, and Proton flux.

In the middle of the playbar you will see the date (in the format of year-month-day), time (in the format of hh'mm'ss), and the frequency in kHz.

The middle section of the playbar: date, time and frequency (in kHz).
On the right side of the playbar, there is a number of small indicators: PAW3, CPU load, hard disk usage, PAW4, and the SSB mode used (either LSB or USB).

By left-clicking on PAW3 you can toggle the TIME and FREQUENCY modes. By right-clicking on PAW3 you can toggle the LSB and USB modes. This is why a common practice among JAGUAR LITE users is to keep the mouse over PAW3: most of the time you just left- or right-click on PAW3 and use the mouse wheel for scrolling.

The black pop-up menu above the JAGUAR logo appears when you hover mouse over the rightmost paw (PAW4).
The arrows in the menu stand for previous (<) and next (>).
The WALLPAPER and Q-ROTATOR items in the menu are not available in JAGUAR LITE.
The CPU is given as a percentage figure so "CPU 8" in the screenshot above means a CPU load of 8%.

The horizontal white area (below the CPU area) filled with a green bar indicates the usage of the hard disk where the recordings will be saved. The screenshot indicates that the current hard disk is almost half-full (or half-empty, for that matter).

In the pop-up menu which appears when you hover the mouse over the rightmost paw (PAW4) on the playbar, you will see tools to help you "jump" between your recordings by day, hour, file or minutes. Also, you can use this menu for moving on the MW dial by the frequency step set.

On the right margin, you will see the SSB mode in use: either LSB (Lower Sideband) or USB (Upper Sideband). You can toggle the LSB and USB mode by pressing the DOWN arrow.


Modes of operation


There are three modes of operation, and the current mode is indicated as the color of the playbuffer/playbar.

Green Mode (LIVE)


The Green Mode is active when you are listening to Perseus in real-time (“live”) with JAGUAR LITE. The color of the playbar is green. To enter the Green Mode, press the L (L for LIVE) key.

Click to enlarge.

You can freely move in time within the buffered section of the playbar by using arrow keys or by clicking the mouse on the playbar. So, it feels like going back in time instantaneously. To get back to "real time", press the L (LIVE) key. Also note that if you choose MOUSETIME in the Settings menu on the toolbar, you will see the exact timestamp on a small window while hovering over the playbar with the mouse.

If you press the B (BREAKPOINT) key while in the Green Mode, another green playbuffer will start from the beginning for another 8-minute-long buffer. If you feel that the current buffer will be full just before the top of the hour or half-hour, just press B a couple of minutes before (and then move to the Red Mode by pressing the R key) to ensure that there are no interruptions at critical moments.

Red Mode (RECORDING)


The Red Mode is active when you are listening to Perseus in real-time with JAGUAR LITE and are ready to save the playbuffer to the hard disk. The color of the playbar is red. To enter the Red (RECORDING) Mode, press the R key.

Click to enlarge.

You can freely move back and forth in time within the buffered section of the playbar by using arrow keys or by clicking the mouse on the playbar. To get back to "real time" in the Live mode, press the L (LIVE) key.

Please note that nothing is being saved (recorded on to the hard disk) in the Red Mode until the playbuffer reaches the end of its 8-minute limit or you press the B (BREAKPOINT) key. So you will have a great amount of flexibility up to the last second in deciding whether or not save the current buffer to the hard disk. When the playbar reaches the end of the playbuffer, the buffer will be saved to disk, and another playbuffer will be automatically started in the Red Mode.

If you press B at any time in the Red Mode, the playbuffer will be saved from the start of the buffer to the time point of pressing the B key. The buffer will be saved to the hard disk, and another playbuffer will be started in the Recording Mode.

You can exit the Recording Mode, and save the current playbuffer and move to the Green (LIVE) Mode by pressing the R key once. Alternatively, you can exit recording without saving the current playbuffer by pressing the ESC key.

Blue Mode (ARCHIVE)


The Blue Mode is active when you are listening to archived recordings. The color of the playbar is blue. To enter the Blue Mode, either press the O (OPEN RECORDING) key and select a file, or click the OPEN FOLDER icon  on the toolbar.

The playbar in the ARCHIVE mode. Below the playbar is the toolbar. Click to enlarge.

The playbar acts in the same manner as it would in the Green and Red Modes. So you can freely move back and forth in time within the buffered section of the playbar by using arrow keys or by clicking the mouse on the playbar. The B (BREAKPOINT) key has no effect in this mode.

Also note that you can quickly travel from file to file by keeping the N (=NEXT FILE) or P (=PREV FILE) key pressed down. In addition, the LIVE mode (if activated) can be reached just by keeping the N key down long enough (the "live buffer" is always the last file in the file chain).

Scheduled recordings. Although you are in the Blue Mode, scheduled recordings (set up in the [MESTOR] section of JAGUAR.INI) in the Red Mode will nevertheless take place in the background at the specified times. This can be seen as a red bullet on the right side of the toolbar.