TinySA Ultra – SIGINT SETUP, by GuerrillaLogistician

The TinySA Ultra is an interesting little device and the improvement over the TinySA.  While this is a spectrum analyzer, we can use it for signals intelligence. This article will be a basic guide for the beginner, as this thing honestly has more capabilities than this article could cover.  Some of you will find better ways to do things and I hope you will either send in your suggestions or I will meet you on the forums. The key here is research and experimentation, but for those of you who bought this and don’t know where to start this is the guide for you. Realistically you want to go to tinysa.org and find out its full potential. For the guerilla sigint guy this should get you started though.

  1. On off switch
  2. Menu switch that can be clicked inward or rotated left and right.
  3. (Not pictured) USB-C jack.
  4. (Not pictured) microSD card slot.
  5. (Not pictured) 3.5 mm headphone jack.

https://tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.FirstUse

The initial setup of one of these is easy and I will leave the instructions with the designer or possibly a dispatch article in case your internet goes dead.  Remember to attach the cables properly before doing the self-test and calibration, as pictured above.  There are several youtubers that run through the setup as well as the info provided by the website. A couple key points for you guys.  You will want to charge your device before you really play with it, you don’t want it dying halfway through the setup. The stylus that comes along with the device makes life a lot easier.  Anything can be used to touch the screen, just make sure it isn’t sharp or will leave marks on your screen. You can also access all the settings by pushing in on the swiveling toggle button next to the power switch if you don’t have a stylus or you are in gloves. A simple press in and then moving the tab left or right will get you to where you want to go.

This is the developers initial guide to the TinySA Ultra, goes into some stuff about the device that will help some of you get around.

https://tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=TinySA4.Ultra

The unlock code for Ultra mode is 4321 then click the x1 to confirm that number. I will assume at this point you have done a SELF TEST and CAL with the cable attached using the links above.

Understanding the initial screen

The main screen for the uninitiated will be a bit confusing but with time you’ll figure it out fast. I will focus on what I think you should know and why.

1. This tells you what trace your pip is on, the frequency it’s located on and your decibel level. You can have more than one pip and you will get similar information next to this one.  A second PIP will have a different number and possibly color.  I will leave that info out for brevity though, refer to the website for more.

2. This is your pip which gives you basic information on 1 such as frequency.

3. This number represents how fast your scan through the selected spectrum is. The slower this scan the longer it will take to detect and the more you will miss. On the image you will see about 700 milliseconds, but this can vary greatly depending on the bandwidth you are looking at. The more of the band the longer this takes, although some settings change the scan rate as well. If your scan is long, you will see a green bar at the base of your graph coming across as the data changes.

4. This is your start frequency in the bottom left corner, and this delineates where your search begins. The 100.0MHz/ next to it is the spacing between your vertical lines on your graph and will change depending on your setting.

5. This is the ending frequency of your scanning area.

SETUP INSTRUCTIONS

All setup starts from the main menu in case you get confused, bump into something wrong etc. If you are already in the sub directory jump to that point.  If you ever get confused use the BACK button and return to the original menu screen.  You will understand this later.  All MENU directions will be MENU > Next MENU, because some of the menu items aren’t intuitive.

My preferred SIGINT SETUP

My preferred setup for signals intelligence is straightforward. Anyone who’s run any radio like the G90 that has a waterfall knows how easy it is to see people talking.  Not only can you see the frequency to tune to, but you also have a good guess on how long ago they were on. The first thing you want to do is set up your trace. The trace is the line that is going across the screen, and you have an option of up to four traces at once. I prefer a setup where I can have the Max signal strength presented to me plus a current signal strength which shows me the current reception levels across the bands I’m looking at. Underneath your trace the waterfall is continuously flowing down like a sonar screen. We’ll start with setting up the traces because anytime you do anything on this device it resets the waterfall so that will be the last thing we do.

TRACE>CALC OFF> MAX HOLD This sets Trace 1 (yellow) to show the highest signal strength received while the device is on.

TRACE>TRACE 1>TRACE 2>ENABLE This sets the Trace 2 (green) like the default trace showing you current signal fluctuation.

DISPLAY>WATER FALL (note you can do this a second time and you can extend the waterfall compressing the trace line to about ¼ the screen.  If you are primarily interested in signals over time and viewing the waterfall this will help.)

*Optional* CONFIG>MORE>EXPERT CONFIG> HAM BANDS (This displays the ham bands in your spectrum as grey vertical lines

FREQ SELECTION

All frequency selection is done by two main steps for the purposes we need. When you click on the frequency button.  The only settings you need to worry about are START and STOP.  Everything else updates itself and is of no real consequence. You’ll want to be careful of your scanning speed as it can take a long time to scan the full capabilities of this device. The slower the scan the more you will miss transmissions, especially those quick digital transmissions.  You may watch a large portion of the spectrum and then want to focus on certain areas, every time you change your frequency settings the waterfall and data reset.