Signal Strength S-meter (or just in text alongside the -dBm figure, in brackets)

[Geek648]

If there's one thing the average radio enthusiast likes, it's a nice S-Meter. I'm sure you seen them... I doubt I'll be able to fire your imagination enough to add a graphic one because I'm not particularly persuasive... but... there's a fairly simple conversion from dBm to S-points if you'd kindly consider showing both in text, please?

So instead of just :
-50 dBm
it would show this :
-50 dBm (S9+23dB)

The mapping of dBm to S-points is here (there's a 6dB spacing between S-points) :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_meter
You may consider it would clutter up the interface slightly, in which case I'll shut up :)

[KejPi]

Signal strength in DAB is usually expressed in dBm because it makes sense due to noisy nature of the signal. I do not think that S-meter makes any sense, honestly I do not understand this measure at all (what is wrong with dBu for AM/FM?) so I will not add it, sorry.

[Geek648]

You and I understand dBm, and I'm glad it's displayed - thanks.
But there are many two-way radio enthusiasts who are happier with S-meters, and don't understand dB let alone dBm. Seeing as it's such a simple conversion I thought it would give your software an extra appeal.
I'm more of a SQL guy, with a touch of VBA and Pascal in my past, but I could probably rustle up the C++ code myself. Just add 127 to the dBm number to bring it to a positive range 6 for S1, 12 for S2, 18 for S3..... simple div by 6 then for the S number; limit the results to 9 maximum, then take away S*6 from the shifted-positive number for the number of dB over the S point ... like S7+2.5db for example. 3 vars, a division, a conditional, format the numbers as a string... done.
Thanks anyway, better you spend your effort where you think it's best for the overall project - cheers

[KejPi]

I did not say if would be difficult to implement. It is just not systematic and makes no sense in my opinion. If I see some demand for this feature then I would reconsider it but currently you are the first ever mentioning S-meter for DAB. There was another user asking for dBu (he received the same answer). To be clear, I welcome all ideas but it does not mean I implement all of them. And by the way - signal level is not a quality measure for DAB and at the end it makes not so much sense regardless of unit used.

[Geek648]

Thanks for your reply. I hesitate to prolong this, I hope I'm not too irritating but...

You've clearly put some great work in with the TII aspect so it's clear that one of the target audiences for this software is "DX-ers", for whom an S-meter is a very familiar feature on other types of radios. I'm not sure how you can conclude that received signal strength of the ensemble is NOT of interest to such enthusiasts enjoying reception outside of the norm?

With the world moving towards SDR away from the multi-stage IF conversions of old, it's only a matter of time before a wide band receiver (or even a transceiver?) from the likes of AOR or Alinco, Yaesu, Icom, etc. ... sees DAB added to the modes offered on a radio. When that happens, it will become normalised to see an S-meter alongside this mode like all others. I contend that this is your chance to get ahead of the game :)

Any type of radio reception where you can measure signal strength in dBm can just as easily translate to an S-meter, IMHO. But it's not a hill I'm willing to die on! Thanks for letting me have my say, have a good weekend

[Geek648]

Without wishing to annoy you, just FYI... this is starting to happen with enthusiast hardware. Cheers