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RE: LF: Idiot's guide to receiving Ebnaut? - Tutorial part2

To: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: LF: Idiot's guide to receiving Ebnaut? - Tutorial part2
From: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2016 14:12:45 -0400
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Hello Stefan,

 

Thank you, I will buy and use both of the GPS modules that you mentioned, much appreciated!

 

I originally bought Trimble GPSDOs because friends recommended them, and never knew for certain if other GPSDOs would support long integration times (such as for TA attempts). Would the GPS units that you mentioned below suffice for the 50uHz bandwidths that could be useful for TA attempts?

 

The other reason that I bought Trimble devices is stability for experimenting with unconventional types of VLF antennas, making phase and amplitude measurements outdoors (wide temperature ranges at my locations, Trimble E is double-ovenized) and portable indoors (no GPS, in which case the Trimble holdover accuracy is great). But the Trimble units have also been quite a burden for these applications because of the power requirements, including a battery and inverter/converter for the Trimble that is awkward and noisy (EMI) for these portable weak-signal experiments.   The 60-meter square TX loop is in a remote area far from any buildings or climate control so I may still try to use Trimble units there, for the temperature stability [main objective for those upcoming loop-antenna experiments is to achieve distance and measure the near and far field amplitude patterns, but it will be interesting to measure the phase pattern also, in which case the Trimble stability (time and temperature) might be preferable].

 

But after all the recurring impediments (weight/size/EMI ) to portable outdoor/indoor testing using Trimble (including battery and power converter), I am really looking forward to using the units that you mentioned, in most or all of these applications, thank you!

 

The links that you provided did not have US delivery but I found this (HiLetgo New GY-NEO6MV2 Flight Control GPS Module With EEPROM MWC APM2.5 Antenna):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I1JDCJ2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It looks very similar (almost identical) to the unit that you are using, so I ordered some.

 

Thank you for the guidance, I am looking forward to better portable testing with these!

 

73,

 

Jim AA5BW

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of DK7FC
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 10:17 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: LF: Idiot's guide to receiving Ebnaut? - Tutorial part2

 

Hi Jim,

I addition to the discussion here some more words.
A D flip-flop, used as a frequency divider? Maybe. Or a simple mono-flop. But i can imagine that this can cause a higher jitter to the syncing, depending on the rise time. I would search for another solution...

If this Trimble Thunderbold thing does not work without problems for the goal you're following, why are you planning to buy two more of them?

What i can recommend and what i am using on the tree and in my recent portable VLF/ULF recordings is a cheap NEO-6M GPS module which is quite cheap and compact. And there is a free available software to configure the PPS pulse width (You need a level converter then, so adapt the serial inferface of the module to the PC so that the software can communicate with the module). The pulse width (when locked) is 100 ms by default, which is fine. I can however recommend to use the combined PPS+NMEA option in SecLab(SL), then you even have a timestamp and the exact location into your recording, if you're planning to record something in the future.

This module is very cheap and can be driven at 5V or 3.3V, for example you can connect it to the USB 5V simply. BTW it comsumes about 45mA.
Here is a link: https://www.amazon.de/GY-NEO6MV2-NEO-6M-Module-Control-Arduino/dp/B01KHA8784/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1477404397&sr=8-2&keywords=neo-6m
or that one (i am using): https://www.amazon.de/SODIAL-GPS-Modul-Kontroll-Acromodelle-Quadcopter/dp/B019C86HQQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1477404478&sr=8-7&keywords=neo-6m

Just solder a tap on the right side of the blue SMD LED to get the PPS output.

So cheap, it's almost not worth to think about...

73, Stefan


Am 24.10.2016 21:40, schrieb [email protected]:

Hello Stefan,

 

I have a question that is a digression from Tony’s question but perhaps related:

 

Bill (WB6BNQ), Graham and Wolf (on March 3, 2014) suggested (thanks!) the following to make the narrow 1pps pulse from my Trimble (Thunderbolt E) GPSDO] compatible with an external USB sound card:

 

A pulse stretcher based on either a modern version of 74123, such as a 74HC123, or a stretcher made from half of a 74HC74 Dual D flip-flop [resistor from not-Q to not-R; parallel speedup diode (anode to not-Q), and capacitor from not-R to ground], to stretch the 1pps pulse to well over 10us (at least a few milliseconds)

 

I am preparing to interface two more Trimble Thunderbolt E GPSDOs to an external USB sound card for SpecLab , for a VLF loop-TX test this year (60 meter horizontal square loop with 6 kW PA power; low ERP but GPS disciplined so maybe some interesting signals); and I wonder if the above solutions (one-shot or flip-flop) for interfacing the narrow Trimble 1pps signal to an external USB sound card for SpecLab remain the recommended approach. Do you have any thoughts on this?

 

Thank you, and apologies if this obfuscates Tony’s thread.

 

73,

 

Jim AA5BW    

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of DK7FC
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2016 9:55 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: LF: Idiot's guide to receiving Ebnaut? - Tutorial part2

 

Hi Tony,

OK so if your RX and PC time is stable, we can give it a try.
-You need a stereo input soundcard and feed the PPS signal to the right channel. Just run it at 48 kS/s. The PPS signal must be DC decoupled and the level must be limited to 80% of the ADC range, simply use 100nF and a resistive divider. The values will depend on your GPS module and its output level.
-Download the latest version of SpecLab and install it to the recommended folder.
-Turn the RX to 136.00000 kHz USB and use a 2.5 kHz wide SSB filter. Connect the RX to the left channel of the soundcard input.
-Download the usr file in this mail and open it into SpecLab (File -> Load settings from...)
-Click on Components -> Show Components. A box opens. In the top left corner, click on "SR cal". Another box opens. The Status must be green, showing pps peaks OK. If the level is to high, click on "scope" and see the peak form. Then you need to adjust the divider of your GPS module to reduce or increase the PPS level. The box must be green for most of the time in the end. Click to scope again, there is a pulse counter PC and an error counter EC. The error should be lower than 2 % or so, for example PC=1000 EC=16. Just let it run a few hours and see if the tracking is stable.
If you have problems in this step, tell us what the problem is.
-Wait a few hours and check if text files appear at C:\Spectrum\data After the first 40 minutes, a file should appear each 10 minutes.
-Ask someone to transmit a short EbNaut message at 1s symbols and make sure to record on this time.

So far. Then we can continue with part 3 :-)

73, Stefan


Am 23.10.2016 19:09, schrieb Tony Baldwin:

Hi Stefan
 
My receiver is an Elad FDM-DUO SDR with a 10 MHz GPS input.
Unfortunately SpecLab doesn't have that radio for an SDR input, so I have to use the sound input via USB.
I could send the 1 PPS to my computer via RS 232 as well if that helps.

73, Tony, EI8JK.


On 23/10/2016 17:51, DK7FC wrote:

Hi all,

I started to write the second part of this tutorial but when finished i was not happy with the result.

The first thing one can say is that you will need a very frequency stable receiver. There is no chance without an external reference signal. For generating wav files using SpecLab you will also have to use a ref signal to compensate the drift of your soundcard. Some people have already prepared things in the past. You can use a 1 PPS signal for soundcard drift compensation or a down divided 10 MHz GPS reference or a stereo soundcard receiving VLF MSK signals on the other channel to compensate the drift.
Also the SpecLab configuration depends on your receiver type.
Now i could simply make some assumptions what your equipment may be but this may be not a good way.
So now i think it's better that we start with one example, one (or more) of the stations who are interested in EbNaut decodes on LF should describe the available system components. Then we can work it out what must be done.
We will need to have a stable RX frequency and a drift compensated soundcard frequency in the end.

So who of those who are interested wants to start?

73, Stefan

 

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