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The “About…” function opens a window containing information about URSA-II MCA and the URSAII hardware.
“Version Information…” simply displays the version number of the URSA-II MCA software.
MCS Acquisition Controls and Indicators
The four buttons along the top of this section control the acquisition of spectra. From left to right, these are
“Start,” “Stop,” “Clear,” and “Clear and Restart.”
The Start button begins an acquisition. If data is currently displayed but is not currently accumulating the
acquisition will re-start, adding data to the existing chart. If a spectrum is currently accumulating, this button
will be displayed with a red X over it, and will be unavailable.
The Stop button ceases data acquisition. No data is destroyed, and the acquisition can be restarted if desired.
This button has no effect if the acquisition has previously been stopped.
The Clear button erases all data from the chart, and resets the elapsed time to zero. If a spectrum is currently
acquiring, acquisition will stop. No warning is given before data is deleted.
The Clear and Restart button is equivalent to pressing the Clear button followed by the Start button, and is
provided for convenience. Again, no warning is given before data is deleted.
Immediately below these buttons is a status display showing the current status of data acquisition.
Moving downward, the next object is the white “Time (sec)” input box, with a checkbox immediately to its
left. If the checkbox is checked, URSA-II will stop acquiring data when the total counting time equals this
value. Time units are in seconds. An acquisition cannot be started or continued if the checkbox is checked
and the acquisition time equals or exceeds the amount of time in the input box. Typing in the Time box will
immediately un-check it; pressing Enter on the keyboard after changing the Time value will re-check it.
Directly underneath the “Time (sec)” input box are two displays. The first shows the total elapsed time in the
data acquisition, and the second shows the total number of counts collected.
The next item down is the “Dwell Time” control. This determines how frequently data is posted on the chart,
and what period of time each data point represents the sum of. This value can be altered from 1 to 60 seconds.
This control can be changed while an acquisition is in progress.
Below that is a box labeled “Display Data as” where the left axis chart units can be changed between counts
(accumulated in each dwell time period), cpm or cps (averaged over the dwell time period). This cannot be
changed after an acquisition has been started until the chart is cleared.
The next set of controls (“Scroll Width”) affect the bottom axis of the chart display. If “Scroll Width” is checked,
then the width of the bottom axis will be the number of seconds displayed in the input box immediately below.
If Scroll width is not checked, then the width of the bottom axis will reflect all of the data points collected.
Note that performance may suffer if a very large number of data points (1500 or so) are displayed.
The controls in this area are the autosave features. If “Autosave Every” is checked, then the accumulated data
will be saved to sequential files at a frequency determined by the value in the box immediately below. If “Low
Activity Sample” is checked under the Utility menu, you will be able to choose whether to autosave just the
low activity data (i.e., only non-zero values) or both.
MCS Analog Panel
This panel displays an analog-style meter movement of the current acquisition. The settings for this panel can
be altered independently of the chart display.
