3350-3750 MHz Power Spectral Density Dataset Collected by OpenZMS from Calibrated Signal Hound RF Monitors in the POWDER Mobile Wireless Network Testbed

What this is

Raw power spectral density files produced by two calibrated Signal Hound SM200C RF monitors deployed in the POWDER testbed on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, UT.  The dataset is a collection of Parquet files, collected over a one-week period, partitioned by monitor_id, with each row containing a SigMF metadata column and a raw data column with an array of RF32 little-endian floating-point power values per frequency bin, as well as associated metadata (e.g. starts_at and ends_at define the time bounds of the sweep that produced each PSD).  The goal of this dataset is to help researchers analyze spectrum occupancy and utilization in the POWDER platform, and to allow them to develop and test spectrum occupancy prediction models.

Where it was collected

The data were collected on POWDER, the Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research (https://powderwireless.net): a city-scale, remotely accessible wireless testbed at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, one of the US National Science Foundation's Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR). The data were collected via the OpenZMS spectrum management system, which was developed as part of the POWDER-RDZ project and resulted in a functional radio dynamic zone deployment in POWDER. OpenZMS provides advanced spectrum monitoring and spectrum sharing capabilities, and through its integration with POWDER which resulted in POWDER-RDZ, provides these spectrum capabilities to POWDER users.

How it was collected

The Python and C-based rfmonitor-signalhound software configures the Signal Hound RF monitors in sweep mode using the Signal Hound C libraries, and collects the output PSD data each sweep produces.  The Python side of the monitor software uploads the data into the OpenZMS spectrum management system, which indexes it in SQL and S3 operational databases, as well as archiving it into an Iceberg-based data lake.  This dataset is exported from that data lake in this one-week snapshot.   Both live and historical spectrum data are available to POWDER users in a variety of mechanisms; this dataset is one focused, dedicated collection instance.  The SigMF metadata describes each PSD; the configuration parameters of the Signal Hound radios; and the (processed) PSD data.  Since SigMF was primarily designed to described and package IQ sample data, we utilize the NTIA SigMF extensions to describe the processed PSD data that each record includes.

Each Signal Hound monitor was tasked to collect a sweep PSD of 3350-3750MHz with one-second intervals (sweep end to sweep start).  The full dataset is approximately 250GB and is available to POWDER users upon request; see the contact information below.  The dataset published in this record includes every fourth PSD per monitor.  There is some variance in the actual intervals between individual PSDs starts_at timestamps, likely due to periodic processing delays as data is captured and archived, but the median interval per monitor is 10 seconds.  Each Signal Hound is configured with a sample rate of 200MSps; a reference power level of 0; and operates at resolution bandwidth of 15KHz.

Tools to explore this dataset

You can use the PySpark and pandas software to load, query, and analyze this dataset.  We provide several examples in this repository: https://gitlab.flux.utah.edu/powderrenewpublic/data-lake-spark-examples

Collecting similar datasets on POWDER with OpenZMS

POWDER's OpenZMS deployment receives continuous spectrum monitoring data from our Signal Hound or SDR-based RF monitors.  You can monitor this data live, or query it historically, by creating a POWDER account and creating a new project, or joining the openzms-demo project.  Once you have done this, you can browse to https://rdz.powderwireless.net, login with your POWDER credentials, and interact with the OpenZMS UI.  You can subsequently create an OpenZMS API key (using the user account button and dropdown menu in the upper right hand corner), and use the OpenZMS Python client library and CLI to query historical data or stream it live.

Using POWDER, you can also deploy your own instance of OpenZMS on a bare-metal server using an automated POWDER profile, and connect SDR-based RF monitors to it using our automated spectrum monitoring profile.  The Signal Hound RF monitors are dedicated to the production OpenZMS deployment, but if you select the "RDZ-in-RDZ" parameter when deploying your own instance of OpenZMS in POWDER, the live Signal Hound data will be automatically relayed into your private instance of OpenZMS.

Dataset Detail Summary

Authors, Citation, Funding, and Contact

Cite as: Johnson, D., Wong, G., Stanley, E., Maas, D., & Van der Merwe, J. (2026). 3350-3750 MHz Power Spectral Density Dataset Collected by OpenZMS from Calibrated Signal Hound RF Monitors in the POWDER Mobile Wireless Network Testbed [Dataset]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23789378

Please also cite POWDER: J. Breen et al., "POWDER: Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research," Computer Networks, vol. 197, 108281, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2021.108281.

Please also cite POWDER-RDZ: D. Johnson et al., "Building Radio Dynamic Zones with OpenZMS," IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking 11(3), June 2025, https://doi.org/10.1109/TCCN.2025.3562855

Please also cite OpenZMS: Flux Research Group, "OpenZMS," https://openzms.net/

Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2346555 (CIRC: ENS/Grand: POWDER-ENS - Enhancing and Sustaining the POWDER Platform) and Grant No. 2431961 (SII-NRDZ: MITRE NRDZ-as-a-Service Field Deployment). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Contact: David Johnson, johnsond@cs.utah.edu