AntScopeZ User Guide

This is the closest thing AntScopeZ has to real end-user documentation – the root README.md is build/developer instructions only. It grew out of a handful of stub sections into most of what’s below; if something’s missing or wrong, that’s more likely this guide being incomplete than the app – open an issue.

See Supported devices below for the full list of supported analyzer models and brands.

Table of contents

Installing and uninstalling

Linux (.deb)

Download antscopez_<version>_amd64.deb from the latest release, then install it with apt so it resolves dependencies automatically:

sudo apt install ./antscopez_<version>_amd64.deb

(A plain sudo dpkg -i antscopez_<version>_amd64.deb also works, but won’t pull in anything missing on its own – run sudo apt --fix-broken install afterward if it complains about unmet dependencies.)

Released .debs are built with a fixup step (cmake/fix-deb-self-dependency.sh) that strips a dpkg-shlibdeps quirk which otherwise makes the package list itself, antscopez (>= <version>), as one of its own dependencies – not cosmetic if it’s present: a package can’t satisfy a dependency on itself on a machine that doesn’t already have it installed, so an un-fixed-up build is genuinely uninstallable, not just noisy. See BUILDINFO.md’s Known Issues if you’re building your own .deb and hit this.

Upgrading: install a newer .deb the same way – it replaces the current install in place. Your own settings and calibration data live entirely outside what the package touches (see Files and directories), so they’re untouched by installing, upgrading, or removing the package.

Uninstalling:

sudo apt remove antscopez

This removes everything the package itself installed – the binary, bundled Qt libraries, shared data, desktop entry, and icon – but deliberately leaves ~/.config/AntScopeZ/ alone. If you want a completely clean removal (settings, calibration data, any per-user translation/band overrides), delete that folder yourself too:

rm -rf ~/.config/AntScopeZ

Windows, macOS, or other Linux distros

No released installer package for Windows or macOS yet, and Linux distributions that aren’t Debian/Ubuntu-based won’t have a native package either – build from source instead. See BUILDINFO.md for requirements and build steps. “Uninstalling” a from-source build is just deleting the build directory and (if you want a clean slate) whatever per-user config folder it wrote to (see Files and directories for the Windows/macOS equivalents).

Windows now has a native build (Qt 6.11.2, MinGW) that packages as an NSIS installer (AntScopeZ-<version>-win64.exe), but it’s not yet a published release – built and smoke-tested only, real hardware verification (USB/HID/FTDI device access, .asd file association, etc.) is still outstanding. See docs/windows-port-audit.md if you want to build and try it yourself.

Supported devices

AntScopeZ’s device support isn’t limited to RigExpert’s own antenna analyzers. This list is generated from the app’s actual model table – AnalyzerParameters::fill() in analyzer/analyzerparameters.h – which is the single source of truth for what’s recognized by name/serial-number prefix. If this section and that function ever disagree, the code wins.

Caveat: not every device below is one the maintainer personally owns and can confirm actually works. It is for this reason the firmware update mechanism is also disabled – so you don’t risk bricking a device from something untested/unreproducible. Use this software at your own risk.

RigExpert AA-series

AA-30, AA-30 ZERO, AA-30.ZERO, AA-35 ZOOM, AA-54, AA-55 ZOOM, AA-170, AA-200, AA-230, AA-230 ZOOM, AA-230PRO, AA-500, AA-520, AA-600, AA-650 ZOOM, AA-700 ZOOM, AA-1000, AA-1400, AA-1500 ZOOM, AA-1500 SE, AA-1500 ZOOM SE, AA-2000 ZOOM, AA-3000 ZOOM

RigExpert “Stick” series (handheld)

Stick 230, Stick 500, Stick Pro, Stick XPro

RigExpert “Match” series (antenna matcher/tuner)

Match, MATCH U

RigExpert (unconfirmed naming)

These use the same serial-number-prefix detection scheme as the rest of the RigExpert lineup above, but the product names below haven’t been independently confirmed – worth double-checking against RigExpert’s current catalog before relying on them.

NanoVNA

The open-source/DIY VNA project, and its clones – entirely separate connection/protocol handling from the RigExpert-oriented analyzer classes above (analyzer/nanovna_analyzer.cpp, analyzer/nanovna_v2_analyzer.cpp). Two independent protocol families, both supported:

Neither family’s on-device-screenshot support is implemented.

Other devices

Anything else

Settings → Analyzer → Custom Analyzer lets you manually define a “prototype” – frequency range, screen size, protocol – for a device not in the table above, without a code change. Currently disabled (not safe to use yet – see BUILDINFO.md’s Known Issues). See Customized analyzer parameters below.

First-time setup checklist

A fast path through one-time setup, before your first real scan. Everything here is covered in more detail elsewhere – this is just the order to do it in.

  1. Install AntScopeZ.
  2. Connect your analyzer.
  3. Pick your measurement units (Metric/Imperial) in Settings → General; Light/Dark theme and language (if not English) are set from the View menu instead.
  4. (Optional but recommended) Run OSL calibration – Open/Short/Load, once per analyzer.
  5. If you want the band selector shortcut, enable it from the View menu (“Band Selector”).
  6. Run your first scan.

That’s it – everything past this point in the guide is reference material for a specific feature, not more setup.

Getting started

Connecting to your analyzer

Click Analyzer > Connect… on the menu bar to open the “Connect Analyzer” dialog. Pick a connection type (USB, COM, or BLE), click Scan, select your device from the list, and Connect. “Use same selection for future connections” saves that choice so AntScopeZ can silently reconnect on its own next time, instead of asking again.

By default, this dialog also pops up automatically ~500 ms after launch if there’s no valid saved device to silently reconnect to. If you’d rather it not do that – say, you’re just reviewing saved .s1p/.asd files with no analyzer connected – uncheck “Open ‘Connect Analyzer’ on launch”, right next to “Use same selection for future connections” in this same dialog. The manual Analyzer > Connect… menu item is unaffected either way.

Once connected, Analyzer > Disconnect ends that connection without closing AntScopeZ – useful before physically unplugging a device, or to hand it off to another program.

Once connected, the window’s title bar shows the device’s model/name instead of “Analyzer not connected”.

If AntScopeZ finds your analyzer but can’t actually open it, a dialog explains why – most often, something else already has it open (another program, or another AntScopeZ window pointed at the same device). Close whatever else is using it and try again.

Your first scan

  1. Set a frequency range. Type Start/Stop directly into the Frequency panel, switch the Scan Mode combo box to Center/Range for that pair of fields instead, or – if enabled (View menu → “Band Selector”) – pick a ham band from the selector above the Presets list, which fills in Start/Stop for you.
  2. Set the point count. Type a number into Points directly, or drag the Speed/Accuracy slider just below it (10–1000 points; arrow keys move it in steps of 10) – Fast end fewer points, Accurate end more. More points = finer resolution across your range, at the cost of a slower sweep.
  3. Run it. Click Single (or press F9) for one sweep, or Continuous (F10) to keep sweeping until you stop it – see Scan modes below for why you’d pick one over the other.
  4. Watch it draw. The active chart tab (SWR by default) fills in point by point as data arrives.
  5. Once a sweep finishes, it’s already sitting in the Measurements list on the right, auto-named with an incrementing NN> prefix. Right-click it for Rename…, or Save as… to write it out as a file (AntScopeZ’s own .asd, or Touchstone/CSV/NWL) if you want to keep it outside the app’s own settings storage – see Measurements panel below.

Controls reference

Brief description of each control, grouped the way they’re laid out in the main window.

Menu bar

There’s no toolbar of buttons any more – everything below lives in the menu bar instead (File / Analyzer / View / Tools / Help).

File

Control What it does
Open… Opens a saved measurement – AntScopeZ’s own .asd, Touchstone (.s1p or 2-port .s2p), CSV, or NWL. The file picker’s default filter shows every supported format at once; narrow it to one format via the dropdown if you want
Save… Saves the selected measurement – select a row in Measurements first. Opens the same Save dialog as the Measurements panel’s right-click Save as… (below): AntScopeZ’s own .asd, CSV, NWL, or Touchstone (.s1p, plus .s2p if it’s a 2-port measurement) – see Two-port measurement
Settings… Opens the Settings dialog
Print… Opens the Print dialog for the current chart
Save Screenshot… Saves the current chart (not the whole window) straight to a PNG file you pick – same image Ctrl+C copies, just written to disk instead of the clipboard
Exit Closes AntScopeZ

View

Control What it does
Cursor Details / Markers Hint / Cursor Params Toggle the various hover/cursor readout panels on the charts (Cursor Details and the Markers table are both docked in the main window; Cursor Params still floats)
Show Band Name Labels the shaded bands on the charts with their names, not just color
Show S21 / Show S12 Independent show/hide for the S21 tab’s two transmission-direction traces – S21 (forward) on by default, S12 (reverse) off, since S12 is identical to S21 for any reciprocal/passive device (the common case) – see Two-port measurement
Band Selector Shows/hides the band-selector dropdown above the Presets list – see Presets and bands
Band Highlighting Submenu picking which region’s band data to shade on the charts
Language UI language – auto-discovered from whatever QtLanguage_*.qm files are installed, not a fixed list
Theme Light or Dark – see CHANGELOG.md for what it does and doesn’t cover

Tools

Control What it does
Marker Comparison… Compare two placed markers and estimate an antenna trim – see Markers
TDR Measurement… Set up and run a TDR scan (cable type/velocity factor, top frequency, points, window function), and read the results afterward (distance/open-short/impedance, a velocity-factor calculator) – see TDR

Analyzer

Control What it does
Connect… Opens the device-connection dialog directly
Screenshot… Captures the analyzer’s own on-device screen (not every model supports this – see Supported devices) – see Print and screenshots
Data from AA Loads measurement results already stored in the analyzer’s own memory – see Data from AA
Disconnect Ends the current connection without closing AntScopeZ

Help

Control What it does
About AntScopeZ… Shows the running app’s version number and build timestamp

Frequency panel

Control What it does
Scan Mode Two ways to define the same swept range – Start/Stop (absolute), or Center/Range (a center frequency ± a range)
Start, Stop (or Center, Range) The actual sweep bounds, in kHz
Points Number of measurement points across the range
Speed/Accuracy (slider) Sets Points for you – Fast (fewer points) end to Accurate (more points) end, 10–1000 (10,000)
Calibration (checkbox) Applies OSL calibration correction to scans – has no effect until you’ve actually performed a calibration in Settings (see Calibration)
Full range Resets Start/Stop to the connected analyzer’s own default range

Presets panel

Control What it does
Band selector (if enabled) Pick a ham band to set Start/Stop instantly
Add Saves the current Start/Stop/Points as a new preset row
Delete Removes the selected preset
Move up Reorders the selected preset up one row
(double-click a row) Applies that preset’s Start/Stop/Points and re-ranges every chart

Scan buttons

Control What it does
Single (F9) Runs one sweep across the current range, then stops
Continuous (F10) Sweeps repeatedly, updating the same trace in place, until you stop it

Measurements panel

There are no buttons below the list – Open is File-menu-only (above), and everything else (renaming, saving, deleting) is a right-click menu on the row you want to act on:

Right-click menu item What it does
Select Color… Opens a color picker for that measurement’s traces
Rename… Prompts for a new name
Save as… Opens the Save dialog for just that measurement (see File above)
Delete Removes that measurement – warns first if it’s dirty (see Points column below) and Settings > General’s warning checkbox is on
Clear All Removes every measurement in the list – same dirty warning, covering however many rows are dirty in one combined prompt

Right-clicking a row (and choosing one of the actions above) also selects it, the same as clicking it directly – so the pen-width highlighting and, on the S21 tab, which measurement’s traces are drawn on top, both follow whatever you just acted on.

Control What it does
Row checkbox Shows/hides that measurement’s trace on the charts
Points column Point count, tagged (s1p) or (s2p) so you can tell a plain 1-port measurement from an imported 2-port one at a glance – see Two-port measurement. A trailing * (e.g. 401 (s2p) *) marks it dirty – scanned or renamed since it was last saved; saving (any format) or loading from a file clears it
Delete key Same as right-clicking the selected row and choosing Delete

Clicking a measurement row also highlights it (a thicker line) on every chart, and on the S21 tab specifically brings its traces to the front of the chart – so an older measurement’s traces aren’t stuck drawing underneath a newer one just because it was scanned first. Settings > General has spinboxes for both line widths (selected vs. every other measurement, 1–10px, default 5/2).

Chart tabs: SWR, Phase, Z=R+jX, Z=R‖+jX, RL, Smith, S21, TDR, Multi – see Two-port measurement for what the S21 tab shows.

Keyboard and mouse shortcuts, in the plot area

Key / gesture What it does
F1 – F7 Jump to the SWR / Phase / Z=R+jX / Z=R‖+jX / RL / Smith / TDR tab (Multi has no shortcut of its own)
F9 / F10 Single / Continuous scan – same as the Single/Continuous buttons
Esc Stop/interrupt the current scan
Delete Delete the selected measurement
Mouse scroll Zoom the current chart’s frequency (X) range in/out
+, =, ↑ Zoom the current chart’s frequency (X) range in
-, ↓ Zoom the current chart’s frequency (X) range out
←, → Pan the current chart’s frequency range left/right
Control (Command on macOS) + Mouse scroll Zoom the Y-axis scale in/out
Ctrl + + / Ctrl + ↑ Zoom the Y-axis scale in (same as Ctrl+scroll)
Ctrl + - / Ctrl + ↓ Zoom the Y-axis scale out
Ctrl + 0 Reset the Y-axis scale to default
Ctrl + C Copy the current chart to the clipboard as an image

These are the two gestures a hint overlay used to draw directly on every chart (turned off – it collided with the axis’ own tick labels in the corners where it was drawn); worth knowing since there’s currently no on-screen reminder that scroll/Ctrl+scroll do anything at all.

Y-axis zoom (Ctrl+scroll/Ctrl++/-) has a preset floor/ceiling on the SWR, Z=R+jX, Z=R‖jX, and RL charts, so you can’t zoom past a sane range by accident – enable Settings → General → “Allow extended chart zoom” to lift those limits.

Settings

The Settings dialog has eight tabs: General, Markers, OSL Calibration, Cable, Themes, Analyzer, Graphs, and Updates.

OSL Calibration has its own section – see Calibration (OSL).

General tab

Language, Band Highlighting, Show Band Name, and Band Selector used to live here too – they moved to the View menu (see Menu bar above) and aren’t duplicated in Settings any more. Theme also moved to the View menu, but that only picks which of the 5 built-in themes is active – to actually edit a theme’s colors, see the new Themes tab below.

Control What it does
System impedance The reference impedance (default 50Ω) everything – SWR, Smith chart center, RL – is calculated against
Report Detailed Errors Off by default. AntScopeZ always shows a small set of analyzer error messages regardless of this setting (busy/unreachable device, see Connecting to your analyzer); turning this on additionally surfaces BLE’s own, more technical connection/protocol errors in that same dialog – useful when chasing a flaky BLE connection, more detail than most day-to-day use needs otherwise
Warn before deleting or clearing dirty measurements On by default. A confirmation before the Measurements panel’s Delete/Clear All discards a measurement that’s dirty (scanned or renamed since it was last saved – see Measurements panel)

Measurement system

Control What it does
Display measurements Metric or Imperial units
Max measurements Cap on how many measurements can be displayed at once
Selected / Other measurements’ line width How thick a measurement’s trace is drawn on the charts – 1–10px, default 5 for whichever measurement is currently selected, 2 for every other one loaded at the same time

Data folder

Control What it does
Data folder (with Browse…) Where save/export/screenshot dialogs across the app default to – see Files and directories
Save actions update this folder Off by default. When on, completing a save (not Open) somewhere else moves Data folder there too, so it follows you; when off, Data folder only changes when you set it here yourself

Register application, Match license, and device/firmware info moved to the Updates tab. Connect analyzer and “Open ‘Connect Analyzer’ on launch” moved into the Connect Analyzer dialog itself – see Connecting to your analyzer. Analyzer timeout, “Use reconnect to drain unwanted data”, and Scanning moved to the Analyzer tab below.

Markers tab

Marker behavior

Control What it does
Maximum number of markers Cap on how many markers can be placed at once (1–5)
Automatically set a marker at the lowest SWR On by default. Right after a single/full scan finishes (never during Continuous), places a marker at the swept trace’s lowest-SWR point – only if a marker slot is still free, otherwise it’s a silent no-op. It’s an ordinary marker once placed; deleting it later doesn’t change this setting or stop it firing again next scan.

Columns

Control What it does
Available / Selected lists Choose which data columns the Markers table shows, and in what order – move columns between the two lists (or reorder within Selected) with the arrow buttons. Del/Marker/#/FQ are pinned at the top of Selected and can’t be removed or reordered; everything else is up to you.

Cable tab

Lets you tell AntScopeZ about your feedline, so it can account for cable loss/length in what it shows you – useful when your analyzer is some distance from the antenna through lossy coax. Independent of Tools → TDR Measurement’s own cable type/velocity factor fields, which apply only to a single TDR scan and its results (see TDR) – unless you use that dialog’s “Use this velocity factor,” which does update this tab.

Preset vs. Custom

A radio pair controls whether the cable-specification fields below are locked or hand-editable:

Control What it does
Preset The cable dropdown is enabled; velocity factor, R0, conductive/dielectric loss, loss units, and frequency are locked to whatever cable you’ve selected there (shown, but not editable) – picking a different cable re-applies its numbers immediately
Custom The cable dropdown is disabled; all of those fields become hand-editable instead – use this for a cable not in the list (e.g. off a manufacturer datasheet), or after using Tools → TDR Measurement’s “Use this velocity factor” (see TDR), which always switches to Custom rather than pretending a reverse-solved number matches some named cable

Locked (Preset) fields are styled distinctly from Qt’s normal “disabled” dimming – full-contrast text on a flattened background, so they read as “showing a fixed value” rather than “unavailable”.

Cable specifications

Control What it does
Cable dropdown Pick a built-in ideal cable (50/75/25/37.5Ω) or one of the ~150 real-world cables from cables.txt (Belden part numbers, sourced from ac6la.com) – only usable in Preset mode
Velocity factor, Cable R0 Your feedline’s velocity factor and characteristic impedance
Conductive loss, Dielectric loss Loss figures for the cable, in dB/100ft, dB/ft, dB/100m, or dB/m (pick the unit from the dropdown next to them), specified either “at” a given frequency or as “any frequency”

Transmission line options

Cable length and the three mode buttons live together here, separately from Cable specifications above, because length isn’t a property of a particular cable the way R0/loss/velocity factor are – it’s how much of it you actually have – and because it (along with R0/loss/units/ frequency) only affects anything once Subtract or Add cable is selected. Both stay editable regardless of Preset/Custom.

Control What it does
Cable length Your feedline’s physical length, in ft or m following the app’s Metric/Imperial setting (Settings → General → Measurement system)
Do nothing Use the measured impedance as-is – no cable model applied (the default)
Subtract cable De-embedding: removes this cable’s modeled effect from the measurement, showing the antenna’s true impedance at its own terminals. Use this when you measured through a known feedline and want to see past it.
Add cable Embedding: the reverse – projects a bare measurement forward through the modeled cable, showing what the radio end would actually see.

The math behind Subtract/Add is a real lossy-transmission-line model (Measurements::calcFarEnd()), using velocity factor, R0, conductive/ dielectric loss, and cable length together – not just a cosmetic toggle, and it does visibly change the plotted values when you use it.

Consider this experimental. The model itself hasn’t been validated against a known-good reference measurement, so treat the compensated numbers as a reasonable estimate rather than something to trust for a precision antenna trim – especially if the correction looks larger or smaller than you’d expect for your cable and length.

Control What it does
Export Exports the current/most recent measurement to a Touchstone file, with a comment block describing the active cable settings (Subtract/Add, velocity factor, length, R0, loss) embedded in it. Needs at least one scan first – with none, it shows a notification instead of opening.
Update graphs Applies whatever’s currently in this tab immediately, without closing the dialog first

Themes tab

Edits any of the 5 fixed color themes (Light, Dark, Red, Green, Blue – the same 5 View → Theme lists). Selecting one in the combo loads its current colors into the form below; nothing here takes effect until you hit Save.

Control What it does
Theme combo Which of the 5 slots you’re editing – switching it discards any unsaved edits to the one you were on
Name Freely renamable; shown as “N: Name” in both this combo and the View → Theme menu
Window Background / Text / Text Muted / Border / Chart Background / Marker Six color swatches – click one to open a color picker. The hex value is shown beside each. Chart Background and Marker apply to the plot area and marker lines; the other four are the general window canvas
Example panel Live preview of the theme as you edit it – not the saved version, whatever’s currently in the form
Default Restores this slot’s original factory colors and name (not whatever’s currently saved for it)
Cancel Discards unsaved edits, reloads the slot as last saved
Save Persists your edits. If you’re editing the currently active theme (see View → Theme), the change applies immediately

Analyzer tab

Control What it does
Analyzer timeout (seconds) Seconds a scan can go without receiving a single data point before AntScopeZ treats it as failed and shows an error, instead of leaving the busy indicator/wait cursor stuck forever (device unreachable, or busy – already held open by another program or another AntScopeZ window). Default 8
Use reconnect to drain unwanted data Off by default. Neither NanoVNA protocol (classic ASCII or V2/binary) has a wire-level “abort a scan in progress” command – once asked for N points, the device is going to send all of them. By default, stopping a scan early just waits out whatever’s still outstanding and quietly discards it (see Scan modes). Checking this instead closes and reopens the connection right away, often faster for a large scan, but not guaranteed to make every device actually discard what it already queued internally

Scanning

Control What it does
Scanning points maximum The real practical ceiling for the Points field/slider (50–10000, default 1000) – replaces what used to be a fixed, recompile-only limit
Warn for scans above Pops a Cancel-able confirmation before starting a scan that requests more points than this, in case a large scan was set up by accident
Analyzer maximum number of points Caps how many points a single sweep actually sends to the device (default 1000). Requesting more than that via the Points field doesn’t fail or get clamped – it transparently splits the scan into several sequential sweeps (“stitching”) and concatenates the results into one continuous dataset, so a 1000-point analyzer can still deliver e.g. a 4000-point scan, just across four sweeps instead of one. Applies to Single/Continuous/User scans; TDR, Calibration, and S21 are unaffected for now.

Use customized analyzer – a standalone checkbox sitting above the Custom Analyzer group box, enabling/disabling every control inside it as one unit. Off by default. See Customized analyzer parameters below for what the group box’s controls do and its current known limitations.

Debug Logging – four checkboxes, one per analyzer connection type: Com/Serial, USB/HID, BLE/Bluetooth, and NanoVNA. Turning one on starts dumping every raw byte sent and received over that connection – timestamped, hex and ASCII side by side (traditional hexdump-style, 16 bytes/line), each line tagged >> for a byte the app sent or << for one it received – into a shared log file. See Files and directories for where that file lives and what it looks like.

A fifth, indented checkbox under BLE/Bluetooth, Show ping/keepalive traffic, is only enabled while BLE logging itself is on. BLE sends a small keepalive packet once a second to detect a dropped connection; useful to confirm it’s alive, but it drowns out everything else in a longer capture. Unchecked (hidden) by default – check it to include the pings if you actually need them, otherwise BLE logging stays readable during a longer capture. Serial, USB/HID, and NanoVNA don’t have an equivalent filter: their traffic (including their own periodic keepalives) is always logged in full.

These four checkboxes (and Show ping/keepalive traffic) are session-only by design – they always start unchecked when you open AntScopeZ, regardless of how you left them last time, so logging never keeps running silently in the background across restarts. Turn them back on each time you actually want to capture something.

Graphs tab

Two group boxes:

Zoom & Remote API

Control What it does
Allow extended chart zoom Off by default. Lets Ctrl+scroll/Ctrl++/- zoom the SWR, Z=R+jX, Z=R‖jX, and RL charts’ Y-axis past their normal preset limits (e.g. SWR down to a 0.1-wide window instead of 0.4, RL out to unlimited dB instead of capping at 50), and lets plain scroll zoom the TDR chart’s distance axis out past 1000m – see Keyboard and mouse shortcuts
Enable Remote API Off by default. Starts a local NDJSON-over-TCP control API (loopback only) that lets an external tool observe/control the connected analyzer – status/devices/connect/disconnect/sweep/stop/subscribe/last commands, plus live point streaming while a scan runs. See remoteapi/README.md for the wire protocol if you’re writing a client. Known gaps: BLE devices aren’t supported over this API yet, and if more than one device of the same type is attached there’s no way to target a specific one by port
Remote API port TCP port it listens on (loopback only), 1024–65535, default 7443

Chart Y-Axis Ranges

A 3-column grid (chart, min, max):

Control What it does
Phase chart (deg) Overrides the Phase chart’s fixed ±180° range. Each bound is clamped against its pair (min can’t cross max and vice versa) as well as a generous absolute floor/ceiling
Series/Parallel Impedance chart (ohm) Same idea, for the Z=R+jX / Z=R‖jX charts’ fixed ±2000Ω range

ITU Bands tab

The band editor, moved here from its own standalone “Edit ITU Bands…” dialog (formerly on the Edit menu, now gone entirely) – same text box and Cancel/Restore Defaults/Save buttons, just living on its own tab instead. See Editing band definitions for the file format and what each button does.

Updates tab

Your installed AntScopeZ version sits at the top, next to a Check for Software Updates button – there’s no update-checking mechanism built yet, so that button is a disabled placeholder for now.

A notice explains that the rest of this tab talks to RigExpert’s servers – device serial number, OS/CPU/language, app version and, for registration, your name/email. Use TLS (on by default) controls whether that traffic is encrypted and certificate-verified; turn it off only if the vendor’s server has a certificate problem and you need this to keep working anyway, not something to leave off routinely.

Register application / Match license / Device info / Update license / Register device – RigExpert’s own registration and licensing system. Live and working, but talks to RigExpert’s servers directly and isn’t something this fork tests or supports beyond making sure the connection itself is sound – see the disclaimer in README.md.

Check for firmware updates runs a real check against RigExpert’s server. As of this writing that server doesn’t return update information for any device or input tried (confirmed directly against the live endpoint) – not something fixable on this end, since the request and what comes back are both already correct. Browse lets you pick a .bin file and see its embedded model/version/build info. Update (actually flashing the chosen file to the connected device) stays disabled on purpose: it isn’t reliable enough yet across the range of devices and OSes this needs to work on, and a bad flash can brick the device. Get firmware updates from RigExpert’s own site/ software instead.

Interpreting your data

SWR and Return Loss: what “good” looks like

SWR and RL (Return Loss) describe the same mismatch, in two different units – RL is logarithmic (dB), SWR is a ratio. Higher RL is better; lower SWR is better. Rough conversion, for reference:

SWR RL (dB) Roughly
1.0 : 1 ∞ Perfect match (never actually happens)
1.5 : 1 ≈ 14 dB Very good
2.0 : 1 ≈ 9.5 dB Good, commonly cited as “acceptable” for most rigs
3.0 : 1 ≈ 6 dB Marginal – many radios start reducing power or refusing to transmit here

Most modern transceivers tolerate up to somewhere around 2:1-3:1 before their internal protection kicks in; check your radio’s actual spec rather than assuming.

The RL tab plots this same data on its own chart, in dB instead of as a ratio. Worth switching to when comparing two already-good matches against each other – SWR’s ratio scale compresses everything below about 1.3:1 together near the bottom of the chart, where the dB scale still spreads it out.

Reading the dip: is my antenna too long or too short?

For a simple resonant antenna (a dipole or vertical cut for a specific band), the SWR curve typically has one clear minimum – the “dip” – at its actual resonant frequency. Where that dip sits relative to your target frequency tells you which way to trim:

The same read is available from Z = R + jX at your target frequency, without needing to eyeball a chart: a small positive X (inductive) at your target frequency means the resonant dip is below it (too long); a small negative X (capacitive) means the dip is above it (too short). At the dip itself, X is at or near zero.

This is the classic behavior of a simple resonant dipole/vertical – it’s a solid starting heuristic, not a universal law. Multi-band, loaded, or otherwise non-resonant antenna designs (verticals with matching networks, off-center-fed designs, etc.) don’t necessarily follow it the same way.

Trimming rule of thumb, for a simple dipole/vertical: the percentage change in length needed is roughly the percentage change in frequency you’re trying to achieve (e.g. moving a dip up by 2% typically means shortening by roughly 2%) – treat this as a starting estimate and re-measure after each cut, not an exact formula. Cut a little at a time; wire you’ve already cut off doesn’t grow back.

Smith chart basics

The Smith chart plots impedance as a point (or, across a sweep, a curve) on a circle. The very center of the chart is a perfect 50Ω match (or whatever system impedance you’ve set in Settings → General → “System impedance”); the further a point sits from center, the worse the mismatch at that frequency. Points in the upper half are inductive (+X), the lower half capacitive (−X). A sweep that traces a tight loop close to center across your band of interest is a well-matched antenna over that range; a curve that swings wide is not.

Z = R + jX: resistance and reactance

R is the resistive part of impedance – power delivered here actually radiates (or is lost as heat). X is the reactive part – energy stored and returned, not radiated. At true resonance, X = 0 and the antenna looks purely resistive; R at that point (ideally close to your system impedance, commonly 50Ω) is what actually determines how good the match is once X is out of the way. See Reading the dip above for what the sign of X tells you off-resonance.

Z = R ‖ jX: the parallel-equivalent view

Same underlying measurement as Z = R + jX above, just recomputed into its parallel-equivalent-circuit form (Rp/Xp) instead of the series form (R/X) – two different, mathematically-equivalent ways to model the same impedance as a simple two-component circuit. Series (R + jX) is usually the more intuitive one to read for a plain series-fed dipole or vertical; the parallel view earns its keep if you’re working with a parallel matching network or tuner, where component values are easier to reason about directly in parallel form.

Phase

Plots the reflection coefficient’s phase angle against frequency – the same “phase” value shown in the Smith chart’s cursor readout, in degrees. It crosses through (or near) zero around resonance, mirroring the same too-long/too-short read that the sign of X gives. How steep that crossing is says something about Q: a fast swing across a narrow frequency range points to a high-Q (narrowband) antenna or match; a gentle, gradual slope points to a broader, lower-Q one.

Q factor

“Q” is short for Quality factor – same term as in general RF/filter theory, just derived here from your actual swept data instead of a lab Q-meter: Q = center frequency ÷ 2:1-SWR bandwidth (see Markers’ Tools > Marker Comparison “Q factor (Current)” field, or the informal read from the Phase chart above).

Rule of thumb: single-digit-to-teens is a comfortably broad, close-to- full-size match; several tens starts to mean noticeable re-tuning across the band; hundreds means essentially a single-frequency device (loop territory).

Scan modes: Single vs. Continuous

Single (F9) runs exactly one sweep across the current range and stops. Good for a one-off check.

Continuous (F10) keeps sweeping the same range repeatedly, updating the same trace in place each pass rather than adding a new entry to Measurements every time. This is the mode to use while physically adjusting an antenna (trimming a wire, tuning a matcher) – start Continuous, watch the SWR dip move in real time as you adjust, and stop it once you’re happy. Only when it’s stopped (or you run a fresh Single scan) does the result settle as one finished entry in the Measurements list.

Stopping a scan early (Esc, or re-clicking Single/Continuous mid-scan) usually stops immediately. The one exception is a NanoVNA-family device (classic ASCII or V2/binary) mid-way through a large point count: neither protocol has a wire-level “abort,” so once asked for N points the device is sending all of them regardless. In that case, the status bar shows “draining” progress while AntScopeZ quietly waits out and discards whatever’s still incoming, and scan-triggering controls stay disabled until it’s genuinely done (bounded by Analyzer timeout, so a device that goes silent mid-drain doesn’t wait forever). Settings → General → “Use reconnect to drain unwanted data” switches to closing and reopening the connection instead, often faster for a large scan, though not guaranteed to make every device actually discard what it already queued internally.

One Fq: live single-frequency readout

Set Start equal to Stop (or, in Center/Range mode, set Range to 0), then click Single or Continuous as usual – instead of a normal sweep, AntScopeZ switches to a live single-frequency readout mode:

Only the Smith chart animates. The floating box’s numbers update live (SWR included), but the SWR/Phase/Z/RL chart tabs themselves stay static during One Fq mode – no live-moving trace or point appears on any of them. If you want to watch SWR settle visually while adjusting an antenna, use Continuous scan across a narrow range instead; One Fq mode’s live view is the Smith tracer (plus the box’s own SWR number), not the SWR chart.

To stop: press Esc. (Clicking Full range does not reliably close this box – Esc is the dependable way to exit One Fq mode.)

This is useful for watching SWR/impedance settle at one specific frequency in real time – e.g. while making a small physical adjustment right at your operating frequency, without the visual noise of a full sweep redrawing around it.

Calibration (OSL)

OSL (Open/Short/Load) calibration corrects for the analyzer’s own measurement error, using three known reference standards. It’s per-device – calibration data is stored under the connected analyzer’s own serial number, so switching analyzers doesn’t mix up calibration data between them.

Settings → OSL Calibration has two ways to run it:

Performing a calibration and applying it are two separate steps. Each standard writes its own file (cal_open.s1p, cal_short.s1p, cal_load.s1p) under that analyzer’s calibration folder; the Calibration checkbox in the main Frequency panel applies that correction to your scans, but only once all three files actually exist.

If you check that box before all three are present, AntScopeZ shows a “Calibration Required” prompt and unchecks it again – it’s literally checking for those three files, not tracking calibration status any other way. Running the wizard (or the three individual standards) is what creates them; once they exist, the checkbox works.

Presets and bands

Presets are saved Start/Stop/Points combinations, shown as a table above the Measurements list. Click Add to save whatever range is currently entered, or double-click an existing row to jump straight to it (updates Start/Stop/Points and re-ranges every chart in one step). Delete/Move up manage the list from there.

The band selector (View menu → “Band Selector”) is a faster shortcut for the common case: instead of building your own preset, pick a named ham band from the dropdown above Presets and Start/Stop are set for you immediately, formatted as <name> (<start> - <stop> kHz). Which bands show up depends on the region picked in View menu → “Band Highlighting” (backed by itu-regions.txt/itu-regions-defaults.txt) – Settings’ ITU Bands tab opens the band editor if you need to add or adjust one for that region.

Editing band definitions

The band editor (Settings > ITU Bands) is a plain text editor over the region data, not a structured form – each line is start kHz, stop kHz, band name (a trailing name is optional; an unnamed 2-field line still defines a highlighted range, just without a label). One [Region Name] header line groups the bands under it, e.g.:

[ITU Region 1 - Europe, Africa]

	135.7, 137.8, 2200m
	1810, 2000, 160m
	14000, 14350, 20m

Restore Defaults reloads the shipped itu-regions-defaults.txt (discarding your edits in the text box, not saving over anything until you click Save). Save writes your edited text to your own itu-regions.txt, which is what actually gets read from then on – the shipped defaults file itself is never modified. Cancel discards whatever you typed, reloading the last-saved text.

Markers

Double-click anywhere on a frequency-domain chart (any tab except Smith and TDR, where a marker wouldn’t mean the same thing) to drop a numbered marker at that frequency – or right-click and choose Create marker from the context menu. Markers appear at the same frequency across every chart at once (SWR, Phase, Rs, Rp, RL, S21), each labeled with a matching number, so you can track one frequency point across multiple views simultaneously. You can place up to Settings → Markers → “Maximum number of markers” at once (5 by default); once you hit that cap, double-clicking to add another shows a brief notification instead of placing one.

Every placed marker’s values (frequency, SWR, RL, R/X/Z, and more) show up in a table docked under the plot tabs, one row per marker per measurement currently in the Measurements list – so a marker’s values across several saved scans are all visible at once, not just the latest. The View menu’s Markers Hint checkbox shows or hides this table; it’s shown (empty, headers only) as soon as it’s turned on, even before you’ve placed a marker. Click a marker’s x to remove it, or right-click anywhere in the table to open a context menu with Clear All Markers (removes all at once) or Clear Empty Markers (removes only markers with no valid data across any measurement). The table scrolls (horizontally and vertically, as needed) if it grows past the space given to it – drag the splitter above it to resize. Columns auto-widen to fit whatever’s actually in them, re-checked on every refresh, so a column that needs more room than its header label doesn’t require a manual resize. Which columns it shows, and in what order, is set from Settings → Markers.

For a 2-port measurement (a .s2p import), the Markers table also gains S21, dB / S21 Phase° / S12, dB / S12 Phase° columns – see Two-port measurement.

By default, AntScopeZ also places one for you: right after a single/full scan finishes, a marker drops at the trace’s lowest-SWR point automatically (never during Continuous, and only if a slot is free) – turn this off at Settings → Markers → “Automatically set a marker at the lowest SWR”.

Tools > Marker Comparison

Compares two already-placed markers – Current (dip) and Target (desired) – and estimates how much to trim an antenna to move its resonance from one to the other.

Field What it shows
Q factor, Equiv. L, Equiv. C (Current) Derived from the Current marker alone – Q is the classic bandwidth definition (center frequency ÷ 2:1-SWR bandwidth, walked from your actual swept data, not a lab Q-meter reading), read up on what it means at Interpreting your data
ΔFrequency, ΔSWR, ΔRL, ΔR, ΔX Target minus Current – Δ Frequency works off marker placement alone (no scan needed yet); the rest need real measurement data from both markers
Antenna type / Current length Feeds the trim estimate below – length is optional; leave it blank and a nominal half/quarter-wave formula stands in
Calculated trim, Suggested first trim, Per leg The full calculated adjustment, and a conservative first cut – shortening suggests half the calculated amount (cutting can’t be undone); lengthening suggests 1.5× it (added wire can always be trimmed back down later)

Estimate only – velocity factor and end effects aren’t modeled. Cut the suggested amount, re-measure, and repeat rather than cutting the full calculated trim at once.

Multi view

The Multi tab lets you stack two or more charts for the same measurement, or compare markers across them, in one view – useful for eyeballing return loss and SWR together instead of flipping between tabs. Right-click a chart’s tab and choose “Move chart to the tab Multi” (or “Add multi-charts”) to populate it.

You can add and remove tabs to Multi View using the “+” button to join charts.

Data from AA

Loads measurement results that already exist in the analyzer’s own on-device memory (not files on your PC – see Open / Save for that). Analyzer → Data from AA opens a list of everything currently stored on the device; double-click an entry (or select it and click OK) to load just that one into AntScopeZ as a new measurement.

Read and Save all instead walks the entire list automatically: pick a destination folder, and it loads and saves every stored entry in turn as its own .asd file (zero-padded index + the device’s own name for each), with a progress dialog you can Abort partway through.

Open / Save

File → Open… loads a file into a new measurement – AntScopeZ’s own .asd, Touchstone (.s1p or 2-port .s2p), CSV, or NWL. The file picker defaults to showing every supported format at once (“All supported files”); narrow it to one via the dropdown if you’d rather.

File → Save… (or the Measurements panel’s right-click Save as…, see Measurements panel) opens a Save dialog for one measurement – select a row in Measurements first if you’re using the File menu version. It offers:

None of these formats except .asd store a name (a re-opened Touchstone/ CSV/NWL file is named after the file itself, same as .asd) or 2-port data (only S2P captures S21/S12/S22 – saving a 2-port measurement as .asd, CSV, NWL, or a plain .s1p keeps only its R/X, the same data those formats always hold). Saving in any format clears that measurement’s dirty flag (see Measurements panel) – there’s no format-specific distinction there, just successfully saved vs. not.

Both dialogs default to your Data folder; Save suggests a filename built from the measurement’s own name rather than whatever you last typed. Opening a file from somewhere else doesn’t move Data folder – browsing there for a one-off file doesn’t change where your own saves land afterward.

Two-port measurement (S21/S12)

AntScopeZ can display and export 2-port S-parameter data (S11, S21, S12, S22), two ways:

Either way, the S21 chart tab (always present, like every other tab) plots S21 and S12 magnitude (dB) and phase together for that measurement – View → Show S21 / Show S12 show/hide the two independently (S21 on, S12 off, by default: S12 is identical to S21 for any reciprocal/passive device, the common case, so it’s opt-in). Every other chart tab (SWR, Smith, Z=R+jX, etc.) keeps showing that measurement’s S11 slice as usual – a 2-port measurement is still perfectly valid 1-port data, it just also carries the extra two parameters.

From there:

Typical uses: checking a filter or attenuator’s passband/insertion loss (S21 magnitude vs. frequency), sanity-checking a passive device’s reciprocity (S21 should ≈ S12), or just archiving a manufacturer- or VNA-supplied .s2p alongside your own scans.

RigExpert-family devices: still no live 2-port capture, even on models that nominally support it on the wire – import a .s2p file from other VNA software instead. That’s a known, tracked gap, not a bug to report.

Three related but different ways to get a chart out of AntScopeZ as an image or document:

All of the above default to your Data folder, with a timestamped suggested filename (Screenshot_yyyyMMdd-hhmmss.png for Save Screenshot, AnalyzerScreen_yyyyMMdd-hhmmss.pdf/.bmp for the analyzer’s own screenshot) rather than reusing whatever was typed last time.

TDR (Time Domain Reflectometry)

What a TDR scan actually measures

A TDR run in AntScopeZ is not a separate kind of measurement – it’s a normal frequency sweep, just an unusually wide one, always starting near DC. Unlike every other chart, TDR isn’t driven by the Frequency panel’s Start/Stop fields or the main Single/Continuous buttons at all – it has its own dedicated setup dialog, Tools → TDR Measurement, covered below. That sweep runs through the exact same measurement pipeline as a regular scan – a genuine, real complex-impedance sweep from near-DC up to whatever top frequency you choose (capped at your connected analyzer’s own maximum, or a customized analyzer’s max if you’re using one) – there’s no Continuous mode for TDR, only a single scan at a time.

The TDR tab then runs an inverse FFT over that near-DC-to-wideband sweep to turn it into a time-domain impulse/step response – which is what lets you see reflections (bad connectors, cable damage, impedance bumps) at a distance along the cable, instead of as a function of frequency. That trace only appears once the scan finishes – unlike every other chart, TDR doesn’t draw progressively while the sweep is running.

Why the same scan shows up in the other charts too

Because a TDR scan is just a regular sweep under the hood, every other frequency-domain chart (SWR, Z=R+jX, Z=R‖jX, Return Loss, Phase, S21) is simply a different view of that same raw data, so they populate right along with the TDR chart. This is expected, not a bug.

The reverse doesn’t happen: a normal band-limited scan (say, just your 20m band) never shows up in the TDR chart, because the inverse-FFT math behind TDR requires the sweep to start near DC. A narrowband scan doesn’t satisfy that, so TDR is correctly left empty in that case.

Reading the data with that in mind

The wideband sweep behind a TDR run is real, valid data – but keep two things in mind before treating it like a normal scan of your operating band:

So: if you run a TDR scan and then flip to SWR/Multi and see a curve running all the way from ~100 kHz to ~500 MHz, that’s expected – it’s the same sweep TDR needed, just viewed through a different chart.

Tools > TDR Measurement

One dialog covers both setting up a TDR scan and reading the results afterward, split into two group boxes.

Scan setup

Control What it does
Cable type / Velocity factor A preset from cables.txt (~150 real cables), or an editable custom value. This genuinely drives the upcoming scan’s own distance calculation – but only for that one scan; it doesn’t change Settings → Cable’s own value (used for feedline-loss compensation on every other chart) unless you click “Use this velocity factor” further down
Top frequency How far up to sweep – floored at a few MHz, capped at your analyzer’s real maximum. Wider bandwidth gives finer resolution (can tell two close reflections apart) but a shorter maximum unambiguous distance before the trace wraps on itself; narrower bandwidth is the opposite. Pick based on your cable run: long cable needing full-length coverage → narrower; short run where you need to separate two close reflections → wider
Points 200–1000. More points raise both range and resolution somewhat, though not by a simple straight-line relationship
Unambiguous range / Resolution (estimate) Computed live from Top frequency/Points/Velocity factor above, before you’ve scanned anything – lets you check the numbers make sense for your cable before spending time on a scan
TDR Scan Runs the sweep. No Continuous option – TDR is one scan at a time

Result (after scanning)

Control What it shows
Window (function) Reshapes the already-captured trace, live, with no rescan needed – see the table below for what each choice trades off
Distance to strongest reflection The single biggest reflection in the scan, at whatever velocity factor is currently set in Scan setup above – recalculates live as you change it, no re-scan needed (distance is exactly linear in velocity factor)
Reflection Open or Short, with an approximate impedance in Ohms, based on the sign and size of that reflection – or “None detected” if nothing crosses the noise floor. The Ohms figure is a rough estimate, not a precision measurement – real cable loss and the window function you’ve picked both affect it, so don’t treat small differences between scans as meaningful
(automatic note) If you’ve entered a known cable length below, the peak is compared against it automatically – a peak noticeably short of that length is flagged as a possible fault partway along the cable rather than just the far end
Known cable length → Calculated velocity factor The reverse direction: type in a length you’ve actually measured, get the velocity factor that makes the two agree – exact, not trial-and-error
Use this velocity factor Copies the solved value up into Scan setup’s Velocity factor field, and applies it to Settings → Cable as Custom (resetting R0/loss to “no loss modeled” rather than keeping whichever preset’s real numbers happened to be showing) – updates the TDR chart’s own distance axis immediately

Window function, what each one actually trades off:

Every window is a different compromise between two things: how well you can tell two close-together reflections apart (resolution), and how much fake “ringing” shows up near a strong reflection (which can look like a second fault that isn’t real).

Window Resolution Ringing near a strong reflection Use it when…
Rectangular Sharpest Worst You need to separate two close, comparably-strong reflections (e.g. two connectors close together)
Hamming (default) Good Good General-purpose – fine for most cable-fault hunting
Hann Slightly softer than Hamming Quieter far from the peak Hunting a small fault well away from a strong reflection
Blackman Softest Best One dominant reflection (an open/shorted far end) and you’re hunting for a weak fault that might be hiding in its ringing
Kaiser Adjustable (beta) Adjustable (beta) You want to dial continuously between the extremes above instead of picking a fixed point

Workflows this answers:

A maximum unambiguous distance is set by the scan’s own resolution (top frequency and point count, see Scan setup above) – a long run may exceed what one scan can resolve; the dialog flags this when the peak sits near the edge of that range.

Customized analyzer parameters

Settings’ Analyzer tab’s Custom Analyzer group box is intended to let you define a named analyzer preset – a custom minimum/maximum frequency range plus an LCD width/height – for a unit AntScopeZ already recognizes correctly (a clone, or a newer hardware revision of a known model) whose real frequency range differs from what AntScopeZ assumes for that model.

Use customized analyzer, sitting above the group box (see Analyzer tab above), enables/disables everything in it as one unit; the group box itself has no more “under development” notice and its controls are live. Name your preset, pick a real model as its Prototype (the group box inherits that model’s protocol and everything else it needs, only the frequency range and LCD width/height are overridden), set Min/Max (kHz) and Width/Height, then New/Remove/Apply to manage the list.

That said, this is a young feature and two real limitations remain worth knowing before relying on it:

See BUILDINFO.md’s Known Issues for the full technical writeup of both, plus what’s already been fixed, if you’re looking to pick this back up.

Files and directories

Where AntScopeZ actually keeps things, on Linux (the platform this was verified against – see the note at the end of each subsection for Windows/macOS). Everything below is either read directly from an installed .deb, or from a real config file generated during this session’s own testing.

What the .deb installs

Path What’s there
/usr/bin/AntScopeZ A thin wrapper script – sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the bundled Qt below, then execs the real binary
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/antscopez/AntScopeZ.bin The actual executable (deliberately placed in libdir instead of bindir to scope qt.conf to this app only)
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/antscopez/qt.conf Points Qt’s own plugin/library lookup at the bundled copies instead of any system Qt (placed next to the executable so it only affects AntScopeZ, not other Qt applications in /usr/bin)
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/antscopez/ AntScopeZ’s own private copy of the Qt 6.11 libraries and plugins it was built/packaged against – see Qt version for why it’s bundled rather than linked against whatever Qt the system has
/usr/share/antscopez/ Read-only shared data: cables.txt, itu-regions-defaults.txt, and every QtLanguage_<code>.qm / qtbase_<code>.qm translation file
/usr/share/applications/antscopez.desktop The desktop entry (app menu listing)
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/64x64/apps/antscopez.png The app icon

(Different install prefix than /usr? Everything under /usr/... above follows that prefix instead – sharedDataFolder()/ANTSCOPE_SHARED_DATA_DIR is computed from it at build time, not hardcoded.)

Windows/macOS: no installer package yet, so this table doesn’t apply – both keep the simpler “everything sits next to the executable” layout a dev build uses on every platform (see the next section for where your own files still live either way).

Your own files: ~/.config/AntScopeZ/

This is the one directory you actually own – back it up, sync it, whatever you like. Nothing the .deb installs is ever written to.

Path What’s there
AntScopeZ.ini Every setting – see AntScopeZ.ini reference below
Calibration/<analyzer serial number>/ cal_open.s1p, cal_short.s1p, cal_load.s1p – one subfolder per analyzer, see Calibration (OSL)
itu-regions.txt (only if you’ve edited bands) Your own edited band data, created the first time you click Save in the band editor – overrides the shipped itu-regions-defaults.txt entirely, not merged with it
QtLanguage_<code>.qm / qtbase_<code>.qm (optional) Drop a .qm here to add a language AntScopeZ doesn’t ship, or override a shipped one – picked up automatically, no reinstall needed. See View menu → Language in Controls reference.

Windows: the equivalent per-user folder is wherever Qt’s GenericConfigLocation resolves to (typically %APPDATA%\AntScopeZ\). macOS: your home folder directly (QStandardPaths::HomeLocation), not a dotfile – look for an AntScopeZ folder there.

Your Data folder: ~/Documents/AntScopeZ/ (by default)

Separate from the config folder above – this is where the files you actually work with land: exported measurements, .asd saves, screenshots, PDF/PNG prints, and (see below) debug logs. Every save/export/screenshot dialog across the app defaults here, created automatically the first time it’s needed.

It’s not fixed at that path – change it any time from Settings → General → Data folder (Browse…). Everything landing in one place by default, rather than each dialog remembering its own separate folder independently, is deliberate (see CHANGELOG.md if you’re curious what that replaced). Whether saving somewhere else should relocate this folder for next time, or leave it where you set it, is up to the adjacent “Save actions update this folder” checkbox – off by default. Opening/importing a file from elsewhere never relocates it either way.

Filenames are generated for you rather than reused from last time: a measurement’s own name for Save, the Print dialog’s title field for Print, and a timestamp (yyyyMMdd-hhmmss, sorts correctly regardless of locale) for screenshots – see Open / Save and Print and screenshots above for specifics.

Debug logs: Debug-yyyyMMdd.log

Written here too, when you turn on one or more of Settings → Analyzer → Debug Logging’s checkboxes (see Analyzer tab) – one shared file per calendar day, appended to across the day (including across restarts), interleaving whichever of Serial/USB-HID/BLE/NanoVNA you had logging turned on for so the order things actually happened in is preserved. Every line is flushed to disk immediately, so the file is still useful even if the app crashes right after something’s logged.

Format is a traditional hex+ASCII dump, 16 bytes per line, each line ending >> (the app sent this) or << (the app received this):

2026-08-14 14:32:07.123 BLE TX (20 bytes)
00000000  5A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |Z...............| >>
00000010  00 00 00 3A                                       |...:| >>

This is raw wire traffic, not an interpretation of it – exactly the bytes sent/received, nothing decoded or summarized. Handy to attach if you’re reporting a connection problem with a specific analyzer.

AntScopeZ.ini reference

This is a real, working config from actual use – not a synthetic example – lightly trimmed of pure window-geometry noise. Groups you’d actually want to hand-edit or just recognize:

[General]
UserDataDir=/home/you/Documents/AntScopeZ
UserDataDirFollowsSaves=false

[MainWindow]
languageCode=es
measureSystemMetric=true
rangeLower=143970
rangeUpper=147970
systemImpedance=50
dotsNumber=50
isRange=false

[Settings]
band-selector-enabled=true
activeTheme=0
current_band=ITU Region 2 - Americas
maxMarkers=5
maxMeasurements=5
analyzerTimeoutSec=8
open-connect-analyzer-at-launch=false
restrictFq=true
show-band-name=true

[Theme0]
name=Light
windowBackground=#f6f6f6
text=#1e1e1e
textMuted=#6e6e6e
border=#c3c3c8
chartBackground=#ffffff
marker=#ff0000

[Connection]
id=180000756
name=Match
same=false
type=0

[Markers]
header=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
markersHintEnabled=true

[Cable]
R0=50
VelFactor=0.66
ConductiveLoss=0
DielectricLoss=0
LossUnits=0
LossFrequencyMHz=1
LossAtAnyFrequency=0
Length=0
CableIndex=0
FarEndMeasurement=0

[Calibration]
Z0=50
DotsNumber=500
Performed=false
Enabled=false
OpenPath=/home/you/.config/AntScopeZ/Calibration/<serial>/cal_open.s1p
ShortPath=/home/you/.config/AntScopeZ/Calibration/<serial>/cal_short.s1p
LoadPath=/home/you/.config/AntScopeZ/Calibration/<serial>/cal_load.s1p

[CustomAnalyzers]
use_customized=false
current_alias=

Notes on specific keys:

If your .ini has a leftover group named in another language (e.g. [Marcadores] sitting next to [Markers]) from before this was fixed (see CHANGELOG.md), it’s an orphaned duplicate of the Hint/Markers/ BriefHint popup-position bookkeeping above – harmless, safe to delete.

Troubleshooting

This guide was drafted with Claude (Anthropic’s AI), grounded in AntScopeZ’s actual source code – not yet verified line-by-line against real hardware. Found something wrong? Open an issue.