Rud,

The Lyons book is a good introduction to the FFT and FIR filters but I haven't 
read the other book. "Multirate Signal Processing" (ISBN 0-13-146511-2) has 
information on more complex DSP systems. "Digital Communications" (ISBN 
0-07-051726) is fairly old, but a good introductory book and there should be a 
new issue out by now. "Quadrature Amplitude Modulation" (ISBN 0470 09468 0) has 
lots of information on single carrier and OFDM modems. "Trellis and Turbo 
Coding" (ISBN 0-471-22755-2 has useful information on several error-correcting 
codes.

QPSK encodes 2 bits so if 1 is used for error-correction only 1 is left for 
user data. 8PSK has 8 states so only 3 bits are encoded and if one is 1 for 
error-correction information, 2 are left for data.

OFDM using the FFT and IFFT restricts the type of modulation used on each 
subcarrier as the sidebands for all subcarriers are interleaved and the 
sidebands for each subcarrier must have nulls at the frequencies of all other 
subcarriers. From what I've read, the phase or amplitude can only be changed at 
the beginning of each sampling period. If the subcarriers are placed further 
apart than the symbol rate for each subcarrier, a separate filter could be 
implemented for each subcarrier and the FFT need not be used. The modulation 
restriction is removed, but the bandwidth is 1.5-2 times greater. 

A subcarrier phase modulated at a 62.5 Hz rate has a peak at the center 
frequency and one set of sidebands on either side of that frequency with nulls 
every 62.5 Hz. The sidebands for each subcarrier look a lot like the spectrum 
of an FM signal with the distance between the first nulls 125 Hz. The 
first-order sidebands between the first nulls on each side of the subcarrier 
frequency have most of the energy so some of the higher-order sidebands can be 
filtered out. If a subcarrier isn't modulated, it occupies close to 0 Hz. WIth 
8 subcarriers, all of the first-order sidebands occupy 562.5 Hz. If unmodulated 
subcarriers are placed 62.5 Hz above or below the first and last subcarriers, 
it makes little difference in the total occupied bandwidth.

73,

John
KD6OZH

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rud Merriam 
  To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 03:48 UTC
  Subject: RE: [digitalradio] OFDM Proposal: Details



  John,

  One more time, thanks. A lot to mull over in your message.

  I am working from Lyons for DSP and Sklar for the digital communications. 
Plus whatever I can scare up on the web. Any other suggestions for reference 
materials? Two big gaps are going from the DSP in Lyons to practical 
implementation and between the DSP and digital. Lyons does not really talk 
about communications and Sklar does not go into the DSP enough for me. Sklar 
also seems to be a little behind the curve on DSP and recent developments. 

  Sklar does cover the Ungerboek material so I will review it again. 

  I don't follow the "one bit with QPSK and 2 using 8PSK" since QPSK will carry 
2 bits and 8PSK 4 bits. 

  I was also reviewing some other material. From it I was considering using 1/4 
Pi DQPSK to avoid crossing through the origin during phase changes. 

  There would be room for a 9th sub carrier and still fit in 500 Hz. Why 
wouldn't sub carriers above and below the data sub carriers not count for the 
bandwidth used? More than 9 sub carriers exceeds 500 Hz.

  Rud Merriam K5RUD
  ARES AEC Montgomery County, TX 
  http://TheHamNetwork.net 
    -----Original Message-----
    From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of 
John B. Stephensen
    Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 8:37 PM
    To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: Re: [digitalradio] OFDM Proposal: Details


    Differential PSK should be more reliable in the presence of frequency drift 
and Doppler spread. There are two ways to do this: 1) compare the phase with 
the previous phase of the same subcarrier or 2) compare the phase with the 
phase of the next higher or lower subcarrier. In the first case, the first 
symbol transmitted is always all zeroes. In the second case, there would have 
to be at least one pilot subcarrier that is unmodulated. If you want pilot 
subcarriers, it should be possible to put them 62.5 Hz above and below the 
outermost data subcarriers as they take no extra space if they are not 
modulated. 

    A good way to do FEC is to use trellis-coded modulation (TCM). One bit is 
added to the data stream for each subcarrier. This, 1 data bit is sent using 
QPSK and 2 data bits are sent using 8PSK. The advantage of sending the data and 
ECC bits on one subcarrier is that the error-correcting code can be designed so 
that no extra bandwith is needed and that the addition of the extra bit 
actually decreases the required SNR rather than increasing it as you would 
first expect by increasing the number of points in the constellation. Ungerboek 
came up with a set of codes that can decrease the required SNR by 3-6 dB (with 
no fading) when going from QPSK with no ECC to 8PSK with ECC. The improvement 
is larger when fading occurs.

    The amount of improvement provided by TCM depends on the complexity of the 
state machine used to generate the ECC bit. However, a simple algorithm with 4 
states provides a 3 dB improvement. A Viterbi decoder is used to calculate the 
most probable set of state transitions that the incoming signal has taken from 
symbol to symbol and then backtracks to determine the most likely combination 
over an entire data frame. It can also make decisions based on the actual value 
of the incoming signal rather than on 3 already decoded buts. This adds another 
2 dB of improvement. 

    Its probably useful to place the audio subcarrier frequencies in the 
500-1000 Hz range or higher so that harmonics of low frequency subcarriers 
don't interfere with higher-frequency subcarriers.

    73,

    John
    KD6OZH

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Rud Merriam 
      To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com 
      Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 10:03 UTC
      Subject: [digitalradio] OFDM Proposal: Details



      For your amusement and consternation here are my latest thoughts on doing 
an OFDM protocol. 

      Symbol rate: 62.5 Hz    (128 samples @ 8000 Hz) 
      Guard interval: 2, 4, 8 ms adaptive to conditions 
      Subchannels: 8 (62.5 125 187.5 250 312.5 375 437.5 500) 
      Bandwidth: 437.5 Hz 
      Raw BPS: 1778, 1600, 1333 adaptive (guard band change) 
      Base frequency: undetermined 

      MODULATION (somewhat firm) 
      Waveform: DQPSK with constellation at 45, 135, 225, 315 degrees 
      Generation: 8 separate generators providing continuous waves through the 
guard bands 
      Phase change: start of symbol period 
      Shaping: post generation raised cosine over symbol and guard period 

      DEMODULATION (somewhat speculative) 
      FT: 128 bin every 32 samples for locating subchannels 
      Synchronization: square of subchannels identified by FT 
                       to locate bottom subchannel by 125 Hz signal 
      Frequency drift: subchannel selection based on output of synchronization 
      Phase detection: phase averaged over symbol period, 
                       differential with last symbol 

      A main goal is to keep the bandwidth within 500 Hz. 

      The symbol rate is as suggested by John KD6OZH. First testing will 
probably be with his 8 ms guard band but I would like to make it adaptive to 
short that period if multipath conditions allow. 

      DQPSK to get more throughput and because getting the absolute phase is a 
challenge. Any suggestion to use absolute phase would be appreciated since that 
gains a couple dB. 

      The Fourier transform is mainly to identify the potential subchannel 
locations to allow adjusting for frequency drift. Once high energy bins are 
determined the signal is filtered at various of those frequencies and the 
square used to detect the doubled lowest frequency (125 Hz). That also locates 
the symbol period for synchronization. Actually, the possible frequency 
includes the guard band so it may be one of three values. By determining that 
value the guard band period is also determined and the actual guard band 
removed. 


      Rud Merriam K5RUD
      ARES AEC Montgomery County, TX 
      http://TheHamNetwork.net 



   

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