| | 
Rik,
 probably your idea would work, but I think that if 
  you can achieve
 phase coherence then the
 best technique would be to 
  compute the two correlations between the
 received signal and
 what the 
  signal should be in case either of a "1" or of a "0", then
 select the 
  symbol that
 gives the highest correlation value. And. if you have CPU 
  cycles to
 spare, which probably is
 the case for low signaling rates, 
  then you could even correct for small
 phase errors by
 computing several 
  correlation sums, each shifted by a few degrees,
 finding then the 
  peak.
 And adding a convolutional FEC coding with a soft-decision Viterbi
 decoder would  certainly
 be of no harm...
 
 73  
  Alberto  I2PHD
   I wonder if the new narrow version of JT65 would give us something to play 
with. Not the complete transmission bandwidth, but just the couple of 
characters that occur in close vicinity to the sync tone. I believe this uses a 
similar decoding algorithm and needs to be locked to within a second of the 
receiving station. I must read the help files again. There is also a narrowband version designed for laser communication. 
However, even this narrowband system is still 10Hz wide for the full character 
set.   Both can use class C D E etc.   73   David | 
 |