The small NUC computers such as the Beelink series are incredibly capable and have become the computer of choice for RX-888 SDR receiver installations that run ka9q-radio and wsprdaemon software. But providing these small computers with glitchless power can be a challenge. The small switching power supplies used with these computers do not store enough power to maintain their output voltage during brief power-outage events. Even the transient outages caused when a typical UPS switches into service have been seen to disrupt or reset the computer. The brief holdover provided by the TIS-1250 is sufficient to bridge the gap in power.
I’ve taken KA7OEI’s supercapacitor design and given it a few minor tweaks — it’s now available from Turn Island Systems.
Over at Turn Island Systems (TIS) and the HamSCI group, we are studying ways to measure Time Of Flight over various propagation paths and frequencies. We can currently do this crudely with WSPR and FST4W transmissions but the Time Of Transmit is only roughly known and the modulation characteristics only allow measurement accuracy in the millisecond region.
WWV and other frequency and time standard transmitters include precise timing information in their signals, but we need more transmitter locations and frequencies for a more complete data-set.
Work on the receive end is being done with the RX-888 SDR and ka9q-radio, and I have designed some units that provide a local in-band time reference signal for these receivers — testing is underway.
For the transmitter, some work has been done using GPS-synchronized 1-second BPSK. I am expanding this here to use not only the 1-second modulation, but also a faster PRBS data pattern that still complies with the new occupied bandwidth regulations. This is definitely a work in progress, and my transmitter will be turned on and off while we figure out the details. But for now, here is the signal format:
Carrier freq: 7.090 MHz
Minute 0: transmit morse ID message
Minute 1-2: transmit PPS BPSK
Minute 3-4: transmit PRBS DBPSK
Repeat
The PRBS pattern is the 1023-bit GPS CA code #1, 170.5 Hz chip rate, 10-second sequence rate. The modulation is DBPSK (NRZI/BPSK).
The transmitter location is Occidental, California, and the antenna is an off-center-feed 40 meter dipole. The photo shows my stack of little boxes I am using to generate these signals. From top to bottom they are:
TIS-1W One-Watt amplifier – logic-level in, square wave out, 1-50 MHz, powered via 5V USB-C. The input is provided by:
BeaconBox – a lightly-modified early TIS test board, designed during the early stages of the TIS WSPRSONDE. This is connected to a GPS antenna for time and frequency synchronization. I am also giving this board a reference clock from an external 10 MHz OCXO.
A TIS Filter-Combiner – this takes the output from the 1W amplifier, turns it into a clean low-harmonics sinewave, and sends it to the antenna.
Note that the PRBS modulation is technically *not* Spread Spectrum (that may come later, pending rules changes). We have chosen this particular PRBS pattern because it is well-documented, and has good characteristics permitting potential multiple transmit sources to share a common frequency.
Acronyms, etc.:
PPS : Pulse Per Second
BPSK: Binary Phase Shift Keying
DBPSK: Differential BPSK
PRBS: Pseudo-Random Bit Sequence
GPS CA Code: Here’s a good link that describes this:
https://natronics.github.io/blag/2014/gps-prn/
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments!
paul (at) wb6cxc.com
As we push the envelope of SDR bandwidth with receivers like the RX-888, In addition to sample rate and aliasing concerns we also also need to look at the dynamic range issues. With traditional “analog” receivers the dynamic range is usually dominated by the IMD (intermodulation distortion) of the front-end preamp and the following mixer stage. Techniques to optimize dynamic range include pre-filtering and AGC (automatic gain control), which can be quite effective when used in relatively narrow-band operation.
But AGC and filtering aren’t so easy in a SDR that is receiving the entire spectrum from (say) 10 KHz to 60 MHz. There is a huge range of signal levels, especially when you are close to a megawatt-level broadcast transmitter. While the 16-bit ADC (analog to digital converter) in the RX-888, with it’s 96dB range, is clearly superior to the 12 and 8-bit ADCs used in many other SDRs, the real-world range of RF signals can easily exceed this.
By the way, the effective dynamic range of an ADC is often several dB better than is suggested by the number of bits, due to what is essentially noise dithering and oversampling.
In some cases the programmable attenuation provided by the SDR can be adjusted dynamically for the best use of the available dynamic range. In addition, there is always the possibility of digital overload and/or digital gain control via numerical scaling within the numerous digital signal processing stages of the software. These are subjects for a different discussion. Here, I’m talking about filters.
While some amount of ADC over-range clipping is tolerable, we usually try to minimize this by inserting attenuation or otherwise setting the gain before the ADC sufficient to avoid significant overloads. We also use a moderate amount of frequency-shaped filtering to reduce input levels at lower frequencies where the general atmospheric noise establishes a higher noise floor. The Turn Island Systems SDR Filter and Filter-Preamp are examples of this type of filtering:
Shelf filter with 30 MHz anti-alias LPF
This filter has a steep 30 MHz anti-aliasing low-pass filter, and a high-pass “shelf” filter that attenuates the frequencies below around 10 MHz, flattening out below 1 MHz to a “shelf” attenuation of about 28 dB. This shelf filter roughly compensates for the change in the general atmospheric noise level, and attenuates the USA AM BCB (broadcast band, 540 – 1700 KHz) , helping reduce the chance of ADC overload.
A similar filter/preamp (under development) places the LPF corner frequency at 60 MHz, allowing reception of the 6-meter ham band (requiring a RX-888 SDR sample rate of 130 MHz). This filter also has the stopband notches placed to optimize attenuation of the 88 – 108 MHz FM broadcast band, which would otherwise be aliased down to 22 – 42 MHz in frequency. While the RX-888 does have a built-in 60 MHz LPF, it’s characteristics are pretty marginal (see the links at the end of this post for more details).
Shelf filter with 60 MHz anti-alias LPF
While the shelf filter reduces the chance of AM BCB overload, strong signals elsewhere can still cause problems. If these are in the ham bands then simple filtering is not going to help. But some people are using tunable notch-filters to attenuate specific signals, or ham-band bandpass filters to attenuate out-of-band signals. Here is an eight-band bandpass filter I am currently working on (I’m calling it the BPF8):
The BPF8 is actually a bank of three-section bandpass filters connected in parallel. Each filter has this design:
One of the eight band-pass filters
The (simulated) overall response looks like this, covering the 80, 40, 30, 20, 18, 15, 12, and 10 meter ham bands. These filters are tuned for the WSPR sub-bands:
BPF8 frequency response (linear frequency plot)
Will this help with SDR dynamic range? That depends on the interference — if the out of band signals aren’t strong enough to create problems then this filter will be unnecessary.
If reception between the filter bands is still desired, a broadband shelf response can be selected (via a jumper), which limits the maximum attenuation — here, to 30 dB:
BPF8 frequency response, -30dB shelf (linear frequency plot)
In the USA, most of the BCB signals are below that 1700 KHz frequency. But in Europe there are many powerful broadcast transmitters scattered over the HF frequencies, and these can cause big dynamic range problems. Here are the shortwave BCB frequency bands superimposed on the above multiband filter response (some of these bands are only lightly or regionally in use):
Shortwave broadcast bands
As you can see, some of these SW BCB frequencies are extremely close to the ham bands, and so in those cases the filter will probably not help much, while other SW BCB signals will be significantly attenuated. The BPF8 will probably include jumper options to optionally disable a selected filter section. Is the BPF8 worth a try? We shall see.
BPF8 circuit board
The BPF8 prototype board is densely populated with 24 toroid core inductors, used for their low-loss and self-shielding characteristics. The filter capacitors are on the underside of the board. This will be another “hard to build” design, because of all the hand-wound and tuned toroids, but I hope the results will be worth it.
For more details of the RX-888, and about shelf filters, look at KA7OEI’s blog for some excellent in-depth discussion of these issues:
As you may know, over at Turn Island Systems (TIS) we have developed the WSPRSONDE-8 (WS-8), a multi-channel transmitter used in ionospheric propagation measurements. This transmitter has eight channels, each covering 160 to 6 meters (and all frequencies in-between), each channel capable of transmitting at the same time. Typically some or all of these outputs are combined to feed a single multi-band antenna, using one of the TIS filter-combiner boxes. The WS-8 and earlier incarnations are currently transmitting at locations on multiple continents, in support of the HamSci ionospheric study programs.
TIS has a test site near Occidental, California where I have a number of antennas and now two WS-8 transmitters. One antenna is the EFHW-8010 from myantennas.com, and this is being driven by one WS-8 through a prototype nine-band Filter-Combiner. The frequencies are 80/40/30/20/17/15/12/10 meters.
The second WS-8 is driving two dipoles, one for 160 meters, and the other for 6 meters.
Here is the new setup:
The little boxes on top of the WS-8 stack are (left to right):
160 meter Low Pass filter — This is a L/C/L/C filter, with a few dB of peaking. I used T50-2 toroids for the inductors. The input series inductor reduces the loading on the WS8 power amplifier (the strong third harmonic sees a rather high impedance). Harmonic suppression is better than -50 dBc.
6 meter Low Pass Filter. This is a simple L/C/L TEE filter, again using toroids (T50-6).
9-Band Filter-Combiner. There is a description of this on the Turn Island Systems website.
Clock Distribution Buffer (a predecessor to the TIS-126). This is taking the output of a Bodnar GPSDO and sending it to the two WS8 units.
If you care to listen to these transmitters, here are the frequencies (“tone 0″ of the FST4W 4FSK):
In this post I complain about the symbol-rate timing of the various FST4W rates. I am adding WSPR and other FST4W rates to the Beacon Blaster ( which currently generates FST4W-120, see https://turnislandsystems.com/ for details) and am getting very annoyed with the timing variations.
So let’s start with WSPR. The symbol rate is approximately 1.4648 baud (4FSK symbols per second), or exactly 12,000 Hz / 8192. The FSK shift is the reciprocal of this, or about 0.6827 Hz.
OK, I have no complaints about this, the numbers are easy to work with and “8192″ is a nice power of two. This makes it easy to use a timer-interrupt to run a digital filter at (say) 64x the symbol rate. But really, any values for that 12,000 / 8192 fraction would be workable if WSPR were the only concern.
Now, look at the FST4W rates (from the wsjtx source code):
For the four FST4W rates, the divisors are 8200, 21504, 66540, and 134400. The only common factor is 2. And at that common rate of 12,000 / 2 there is no hope of programming the clock-generator chips, especially since the different symbol times drift past each other.
Since the symbol-rate accuracy is critical to the kind of propagation measurements we are using FST4W for, I am stuck running different timer interrupt rates for each mode and speed, and only running one mode at a time. Why didn’t they use something like this instead?
Sure, in most modes the gaps between transmissions become a bit larger, but if this is an issue then pick some other numbers. But at least have them related by a larger common factor!
I’ve actually been quite busy with Ham projects, and unfortunately have been shamefully neglecting my blogging duties. So, here are a couple of posts at the Turn Island Systems site.
Also, I just sent out boards for a four-channel RF Combiner / Splitter, which takes four 1W (or lower) signals (80, 40, 20, and 10 meters), and combined them into a single output for feeding a multiband antenna. These provide at least 20dB port-port isolation, and less than 2dB loss. If all works as planned, these will be used for Ionospheric research.
And finally, here’s a 1W (approximately) power amplifier, using 74ACT04 digital integrated circuits to drive a wideband transformer. This takes a 3.3V digital input between 3 and 30 MHz, and produces a 1W square wave output. External filtering will be required, and the combiner shown above should provide adequate filtering.
There are “better” ways to make a 1W amplifier, but this is quick and easy, and requires no tuned circuits. I can’t wait to test these designs!
In the process of turning my three-output Si5351-based “ClockBox” into a three-band simultaneous FST4W beacon, I decided I needed a small power amplifier to boost the (approximately) 10dBm square-wave outputs up to a 1/4-watt clean sinewave. Rather than using FETs and transformers, or a Class-E design, I decided to try using the an 74ACT04 hex inverter as the power stage. Each inverter output can deliver in excess of 25 mA with about a 4.2V swing (+5V supply) so six of them in parallel looked promising. And I happened to have a full tube of old 74ACT04 parts in DIP form (remember those?)
So I built one, tuned for the 15 meter ham band:
(Ignore those power-level numbers, I had a bad coax jumper)
I was worried about connecting the outputs directly, afraid that skew would result in excess output-stage current, but some tests showed low unloaded dissipation up past 30 MHz. Adding small resistors at each output might be a good tradeoff, but for now I decided not to waste the power.
I used a simple L/C impedance-matching network to transform the 50 Ohm load (antenna) down to about 3 Ohms which matched the ganged inverter output impedance. Instead of a simple series inductor I used a series L/C, calculated to provide the correct reactance at the design frequency, but giving a high impedance at higher or lower frequencies, and a bit of extra filtering. This also makes the design slightly more bulletproof — you can run any frequency into it without causing excess dissipation.
The output power of the test board was actually closer to 1/2 W, and the harmonics were slightly better than 40 dB below the carrier.
The amplifier efficiency is about 60% and the temperature rise on the buffer was well within comfortable limits. This is good enough that I am having some circuit boards made. The only frequency-sensitive components are two capacitors, and one toroid inductor. I would have liked to use small surface-mount inductors, and the board does provide for that option, but the toroid has much lower loss. The board uses two surface-mount 74ACT04 parts, and a small buffer to drive the 12 inverter inputs.
Someone pointed out this great blog post by Ryan Tolboom, where he digs deep into the “spread” measurement and calculations as done in the WSJTX program. Myself, I had only a hand-waving understanding until I read this:
This is a presentation that looks at frequency stability — history and practice — including why and how to modify the QDX transceiver to use an external clock reference.
