Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Correct method for "compressing" a power spectrum

[John Ackermann N8UR]

One thing you might look at is the "Rosenfell" algorithm used in some HP 
spectrum analyzers (like the 8566).  As I recall, they alternately take 
the maximum and minimum values in the bins -- ie, if you're collapsing 
three bins into one and the original values are

010 050 010|010 050 010|120 130 120|120 130 120|010 050 010|010 050 010

You'd end up with

050 010 130 120 050 010

The idea is that this looks more like the "grass" that you would see on 
a non-digital analyzer and accentuates the difference between noise and 
stable signal, where averaging the bins would lose that distinction -- 
it has the effect of removing indicators that you're looking at noise.

Not sure if this might be applicable to the application, and not sure I 
got the details just right from memory, but I think searching 
"Rosenfell" would find more details.

John