Winscope
Most people will not have access to a electronics laboratory or be able to afford an oscilloscope, so here is an alternative. Winscope is software that
will use your sound card to sample input waveforms and display results on your computer monitor. In addition, winscope also has a storage facility
and has a powerful FFT (fast fourier transform) routine, which enables winscope to act as a spectrum analyser.
Winscope 2.51 is designed by Konstantin Zeldovich and he has graciously distributed it as freeware. After downloading winscope, which comes
as a .ZIP file unzip it and read the help file that is distributed with the program. Below is a snapshot of Winscope displaying a sine waveform:-
The input to winscope depends on your sound card, my sound blaster card has a stereo line input, so i used a 3.5mm stereo jack plug and screened audio
cable, (low capacitance cable is best) connected to crocodile clips. If you have a computer with built in microphone, then you can also use the microphone
to directly display a wave form of your voice.
One of the nice features about Winscope is the FFT button. A spectrum analyser costs even more than an oscilloscope, but with winscope and your
computer you can improvise. A spectrum analysis of the above sine wave produced the following result:
The input samples are either in 5ms or 50ms which are good for audio frequencies. A later version of this program may be available, but this
version is user friendly and a worthwhile addition to anyone's collection of test equipment.
