Signals and catalog

The virtual receiver carries a signal for every receiver the Concentrator supports: 60 receiver types, 1,263 signals, extracted from the Concentrator's own receiver drivers and compiled into the program. A connection picks one receiver type and sends from that type's set.

Choosing the receiver

The Receiver dropdown in the connection's panel lists every type. The Sort radio orders it by name, labelled SML2 (52,63), or by the Concentrator line's TYPE= number, labelled 52,63 (SML2); the choice is remembered per browser. The type must match the TYPE= of the Concentrator line the connection dials — the numbers are the same on both products (see Supported receiver types). Changing the receiver stops a running connection and reloads its signal list.

The signal list

Signals opens the list for the selected connection: each row is a number, the signal bytes with control characters shown as <NNN>, and the driver's comment. The tick on each row is the selection a campaign draws from; All and None set it in one go. Send on a row transmits that one signal now, on the connection's links.

[Image: the signal list with a few rows selected]

Wire form and bare bytes

A signal goes out in the receiver's wire form: the start and terminator bytes that receiver type uses on a real line are applied around the catalog bytes, which is what a Concentrator line accepts. Send bare catalog bytes, per connection, sends the stored row byte for byte instead, for reading a catalog entry back unchanged. A configuration written by the Delphi tool loads with the wire form.

Every receiver type in the catalog can be sent, including types the Concentrator's own decode does not yet cover; where it does, replies are classified as ACK or NAK, and where it does not, replies are logged as raw RX.

Sim New Alarm

Type a signal in the field above the list, using <NNN> with three decimal digits for a control byte (<020> is the SurGard terminator), and press Enter or Add + send. The signal is sent and added to the receiver's overlay, so it is in the list next time.

The overlay file

User-added signals live in sim-overlay.json under the user's application-data folder (%AppData%\sbn-concentrator\ on Windows). It is additive, hand-editable, and reloaded on every start. A Delphi user-signals.json overlay is not read.

Command-line verbs

The same catalog and engine are driven without the console: