View filters

View filters are used to constrain the data sent to your web browser. They can be constructed in one of two ways: typing them into the search term input box, or clicking the 'View filter' button to create conditions manually. The syntax of the filter parser is quite sophisticated, so you should rarely need to use the view filter editing dialog. The syntax for expressing advanced view filters is found by clicking 'Help' in the top-right of the window. In summary, you can search by any combination of:

Multiple queries (i.e. OR) can be submitted at once depending on comma usage. A copy of the complete tips is at the bottom of this page (although it is recommended you check the 'Help' dialog in RFMap as it will be updated first if anything changes).

If a term is not parsed automatically, hints can be explicitly given prior to the term: 's' for site, 'c' for client, 'e' for emission designator and 'v' for callsign. Make sure you analyse the 'filter breakdown' as this will tell you exactly how RFMap will treat your query.

If you want to specify a place and a filter in the one query, type in the place name, followed by a full stop '.', and then the view filter.

View filters are cleared by clicking 'Clear' (above 'Help'), which will be coloured red if any view filters are active (the number of active filters is shown in the status bar).

Here, for example, typing 'Meteorology' yields no geocode results (that section is orange to indicate this). It will therefore be used to construct a view filter in the manner detailed in the 'Filter Breakdown' section. General words (without search hints) are used to search both site names and (really simultaneous OR) client details.

ENTER is pressed after typing the text above. This shows the following sites on the map. After clicking on the 'View filter' button, the view filter dialog opens with the two filters inside. One can add new filters, edit existing ones or delete them. Adding/editing filters opens a model dialog that lets you set the specific items of each filter.

Once a site information popup is open, you can click on the position link to have the map zoom in to that one site (instead of you having to do it manually).

Here are some tips for efficient searching:

  • If you want to search for words in a site description or client name, simply type them in. If you want to search for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in double quotes (e.g. "some thing").
  • If multiple criteria are required, separate the appropriate terms by commas. For example: telstra, optus, voda, hutch. Not using commas would look for sites and clients containing all those words.
  • You can filter by frequency by entering in a number, optionally followed by a unit (khz, mhz, ghz). If you want to search a range add a:
    • Plus (+) to set the range above (e.g. 100mhz+10 searches 100 to 110 MHz)
    • Dash (-) to set the range below (e.g. 100-10mhz searches 90 to 100 MHz) or the upper limit (e.g. 100mhz-120000khz searches 100 to 120 MHz)
    • Slash (/) to set the range either side of the centre frequency (e.g. 1ghz/500mhz searches 0.5 to 1.5 GHz)
  • Valid, fully-formed Australian callsigns are automatically detected.
  • Fully-formed emission designators are also automatically detected. You can specify a wildcard search using ? (one character) and * (zero to many characters).
  • If you wish to precisely set filter fields, enter one of the following letters and a space before the term(s):
    • s for site
    • c for client
    • e for emission designator
    • v for callsign

    Following such a letter, terms can be grouped using double quotes - if not, only the next word is used. To specify a phrase inside such double quotes, use a single quote (e.g. s "'some site'").

  • If you wish to move the map and set a filter, enter the location, followed by a full stop (.), then the filter expression (as above).
  • Pressing ENTER (equivalent to clicking Auto Search) will try to determine whether you want to fly somewhere, or filter site results. If the opposite action (to what you wanted) occurs, click the hyperlink in the orange box that briefly appears.
  • For manual control, click Fly To to move the map to that location, or click Filter to filter currently visible sites.