Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Frank Brickle bric...@pobox.com wrote: On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Brian Lloyd brian-wb6...@lloyd.com wrote: ... But most of the OS's today are things that provide a relatively disjoint environment in which independent applications run...I certainly see the attraction. It is very powerful for the wizard willing to learn to use it. But it probably isn't all that useful for the layperson. ... The perennial problem, isn't it? Whether to design to the needs of the expert or the naive user. Here, as in so many other areas these days, the solution seems ready to hand: multiple, simultaneous virtualized environments on a single user system. It does good things in the portability department, too. This is the approach we're taking with SDeRl, anyway. I started writing to you taking exception to your, problem solving through virtualization, approach. But given that I know you are a not-stupid, I suspect that we probably are thinking about different things when we say virtualization. I tend to think about the popularized meaning which seems to be, run windows, MacOS, and linux at the same time on the same hardware. I can't imagine that is what you are really suggesting as that strikes me as the worst of all possible solutions. I don't think that there is any conflict between meeting the needs of the expert and naive user. It just requires different user interfaces, all of which can be developed inside the ubiquitous programming environment espoused by David. All the underlying functionality can be the same. Interfaces are messages transported by the network which supports infinite distribution. So, what ARE you saying? Or are we agreeing violently? :-) -- Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL 3191 Western Dr. Cameron Park, CA 95682 br...@lloyd.com +1.767.617.1365 (Dominica) +1.931.492.6776 (USA) (+1.931.4.WB6RQN) ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Brian, I found the Fldigi system interesting... and at first you had me thinking someone had found a way around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in terms of making rapid measurements of fine frequency differences... So I did some research on Fldigi, tried it out, and looked up AFC algorithms on Google... I found this really interesting survey article, with some real meat in it (not for the faint of heart): http://engnet.anu.edu.au/DEcourses/engn3214/notes/FDNatali.pdf At any rate, in there you find the DFT variant (discrete Fourier Transform) which Fldigi may, or may not, be using. At any rate, I'm right at home with FFT's and I could readily see that there is no speedup by using a tracking filter. It takes the same amount of time to approximate fine frequency deviations, no matter how you do it. That is very reassuring to me, having spent much of my career trying desperately to estimate things like precession periods of incoming nuclear warheads, (which are around 100 mHz), based on only a few seconds of observations... But what is great about Fldigi, compared to SpectrumLab, is that the tracking filter approach performs a kind of continuous averaging for you, in displaying the estimated tracked frequency. However, I tried using SpectrumLab last night, where I produced a strip-chart of the estimated FFT frequencies. SL uses FFT bin interpolation, on the assumption that (a) SNR is good and high, (b) no nearby interfering signals, and (c) they know the shape of the windowing function. It is a fancier form of DFT AFC than described in the paper (above). There is a huge advantage to having a strip chart recording because, instead of trying to estimate changing trends by eyeballing individual measurements as they come flying past, you can actually see the p-p frequency deviations and the chatter on top of the longer term cyclic trends. Fldigi seems to use hard-coded loop bandwidths and capture ranges. 2 Hz capture range, 5 sec integration time. Good, but I would sure like to be able to tweak those myself. SpectrumLab also has its limitations in that there aren't sufficient computational capabilities built into its tiny analysis programming language. (Oh, how I dream of just doing it all myself in Lisp, with Lisp fully present all the time... that way you can make up ad-hoc measurements that would never have been thought of until you need them. Closed systems can't possibly anticipate every need. I'm getting dangerously close to rolling up my sleeves and just doing it. If I do, then I'll share with everyone too...) - de Dave, N7AIG Dr. David McClain Chief Technical Officer Refined Audiometrics Laboratory 4391 N. Camino Ferreo Tucson, AZ 85750 email: d...@refined-audiometrics.com phone: 1.520.390.3995 web: http://refined-audiometrics.com On Oct 10, 2010, at 16:34, Brian Lloyd wrote: On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.netwrote: An additional source of error is the fact that the 5000 does not tune continuously. It tunes in steps, and they are irregular, so an additional correction is required. When you are watching your WWV phase display, a part of the error you see may be due to this. This may not be important unless you are trying for sub -100 mHz accuracy. Well, I did pretty well and figure I should comment here. First thing I want to say is: I was lucky. I should not have done as well as I did. I will explain why as I go along. My setup: Flex 5000, LPRO-101 Rb reference, beta PowerSDR, Fldigi 3.21.0AM. Sources of error: 1. accuracy of the reference; 2. tuning accuracy of the Flex 5000 DDS; 3. ionospheric doppler error. The LPRO-101 Rb reference is pretty close to on-the-money. Error there should be less than 1mHz at 10MHz so this is not a significant source of error. The Flex 5000 uses an Analog Devices AD9959 DDS chip to generate the LO signals. This chip uses a control word which is really a fraction by which the 500MHz clock is multiplied. The result does not necessarily fall on an exact 1Hz boundary. It is correct to +/- 55mHz (an overall peak-to- peak frequency error of 110mHz). Analog Devices has a calculator that will tell you the actual error for any given input. It also appears that Flex does not use all of the bits in the tuning word further reducing accuracy. (The error is still well under +/-0.2Hz but that isn't really good enough for an FMT.) The last source of error is the ionosphere. I use fldigi's frequency measurement function to repeatedly sample the frequency. When measuring frequency fldigi phase-locks to the signal and accumulates phase error in order to calculate frequency rapidly. I get about 1800 frequency data points in a 2 minute sample period. That data goes into a spreadsheet where I plot the data and do statistical analysis. The plots for 40m and 80m (I couldn't hear the east coast 80m and 160m
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Am 11.10.2010 um 21:55 schrieb David McClain: (Oh, how I dream of just doing it all myself in Lisp, with Lisp fully present all the time... that way you can make up ad-hoc measurements that would never have been thought of until you need them. Closed systems can't possibly anticipate every need. I'm getting dangerously close to rolling up my sleeves and just doing it. If I do, then I'll share with everyone too...) If you need support, a few more hands in coding Lisp, or anything else Lisp-related then please let me know. I'd be ready to jump in on such an effort ... AllegroCL Enterprise Edition ready to use here. Currently developing a Flexible UI as a PowerSDR replacement (à la QT-based SDR Console over at dttsp mailing list). I did have the same dream for a looong time now ;-) 73 Frank DG1SBG ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Okay Frank! Wow, I didn't expect that response! I mostly use LispWorks 6 at this time, but I also have Allegro 8.1 here, and try to keep my code mostly portable between them. The latest LW has some really awesome SMP capabilities. But I am a firm believer in Lisp for this kind of thing, and for embedded systems too! (Lisp is what Forth always wanted to be when it grew up...) Everytime I turn on the computer and start using other people's code, I just squirm in my seat, chomping at the bits to correct this or that, or to provide ad-hoc capabilities that the rest of the world apparently hasn't ever experienced. I may take you up on this offer. I already have a solid basis for the signal processing chains. See: http://www.spectrodynamics.com/id65.html - de Dave, N7AIG Dr. David McClain Chief Technical Officer Refined Audiometrics Laboratory 4391 N. Camino Ferreo Tucson, AZ 85750 email: d...@refined-audiometrics.com phone: 1.520.390.3995 web: http://refined-audiometrics.com On Oct 11, 2010, at 13:02, Frank Goenninger wrote: Am 11.10.2010 um 21:55 schrieb David McClain: (Oh, how I dream of just doing it all myself in Lisp, with Lisp fully present all the time... that way you can make up ad-hoc measurements that would never have been thought of until you need them. Closed systems can't possibly anticipate every need. I'm getting dangerously close to rolling up my sleeves and just doing it. If I do, then I'll share with everyone too...) If you need support, a few more hands in coding Lisp, or anything else Lisp-related then please let me know. I'd be ready to jump in on such an effort ... AllegroCL Enterprise Edition ready to use here. Currently developing a Flexible UI as a PowerSDR replacement (à la QT-based SDR Console over at dttsp mailing list). I did have the same dream for a looong time now ;-) 73 Frank DG1SBG ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http:// www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:55 PM, David McClain d...@refined-audiometrics.com wrote: Brian, I found the Fldigi system interesting... and at first you had me thinking someone had found a way around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in terms of making rapid measurements of fine frequency differences... Nope. TANSTAAFL. So I did some research on Fldigi, tried it out, and looked up AFC algorithms on Google... I found this really interesting survey article, with some real meat in it (not for the faint of heart): http://engnet.anu.edu.au/DEcourses/engn3214/notes/FDNatali.pdf At any rate, in there you find the DFT variant (discrete Fourier Transform) which Fldigi may, or may not, be using. fldigi is an open source software project. You can download the code and poke at it if your are of a mind to do that. At any rate, I'm right at home with FFT's and I could readily see that there is no speedup by using a tracking filter. It takes the same amount of time to approximate fine frequency deviations, no matter how you do it. I wouldn't expect there to be any speedup. That is very reassuring to me, having spent much of my career trying desperately to estimate things like precession periods of incoming nuclear warheads, (which are around 100 mHz), based on only a few seconds of observations... But what is great about Fldigi, compared to SpectrumLab, is that the tracking filter approach performs a kind of continuous averaging for you, in displaying the estimated tracked frequency. Yes, it does. But it is still changing too rapidly and you just can't get a feel for where the mean or RMS value is. That is why I take the csv data that fldigi produces and then massage that. Plotting it (equivalent to your strip chart below) is necessary for me to get a feeling for the kinds of periodic errors present in the data. However, I tried using SpectrumLab last night, where I produced a strip-chart of the estimated FFT frequencies. SL uses FFT bin interpolation, on the assumption that (a) SNR is good and high, (b) no nearby interfering signals, and (c) they know the shape of the windowing function. It is a fancier form of DFT AFC than described in the paper (above). There is a huge advantage to having a strip chart recording because, instead of trying to estimate changing trends by eyeballing individual measurements as they come flying past, you can actually see the p-p frequency deviations and the chatter on top of the longer term cyclic trends. Fldigi seems to use hard-coded loop bandwidths and capture ranges. 2 Hz capture range, 5 sec integration time. Good, but I would sure like to be able to tweak those myself. Yup! But since fldigi is open source, you should be able to add in the knobs to let you tweak the capture range and integration time. I could also see changing the coefficients of the tracking filter on-the-fly depending on rate-of-change of frequency. SpectrumLab also has its limitations in that there aren't sufficient computational capabilities built into its tiny analysis programming language. I can imagine that. I was planning to develop some tools using Mathematica. It has a number of intrinsics that might make massaging that data useful. (Oh, how I dream of just doing it all myself in Lisp, with Lisp fully present all the time... that way you can make up ad-hoc measurements that would never have been thought of until you need them. Closed systems can't possibly anticipate every need. I'm getting dangerously close to rolling up my sleeves and just doing it. If I do, then I'll share with everyone too...) I agree with this. Have things running inside your programming environment where you can change anything you want on-the-fly seems very cool to me. We have gotten so used to static, unchanging applications that are, frankly, difficult to use due to their immutability. Once the author puts in some brain-dead approach to something you are stuck with it until he/she sees the light. Open software is a bit better because you do have the source but it still requires a fair bit of hacking. As for, lisp fully present all the time, well, there is always emacs. ;-) All kidding aside, there is something very nice about having it all there where you can come up with new manipulations on the fly. Yeah, that would be pretty cool. I don't think that is going to happen with the current crop of operating systems. And lastly, I have no idea why I did as well as I did. By all rights I should not, as my base system has excessive errors. I do know that I did eyeball my plots and then trimmed the endpoints to get to the meat of the data. I suspect I that I added in a bias by eye that corrected for the error in the radio's tuning. -- Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL 3191 Western Dr. Cameron Park, CA 95682 br...@lloyd.com +1.767.617.1365 (Dominica) +1.931.492.6776 (USA) (+1.931.4.WB6RQN) ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
yes, one of my points in my note, but not made clearly, was that with an integration time of only 5 seconds, by rights, you could lay claim to 200 mHz precision, or thereabouts. So you did very well, considering. Don't know what TANSTAAFL means? having it all there where you can come up with new manipulations on the fly. Yeah, that would be pretty cool. I don't think that is going to happen with the current crop of operating systems. And I don't understand your statement here. What has to OS to do with it? I normally live inside a totally interactive and incremental system, in which previously developed code can be molded to fit ad- hoc needs. That is provided by the Lisp systems, and they run the same code on OS X, Windows, and Linux, so you have almost instant portability. Dr. David McClain Chief Technical Officer Refined Audiometrics Laboratory 4391 N. Camino Ferreo Tucson, AZ 85750 email: d...@refined-audiometrics.com phone: 1.520.390.3995 web: http://refined-audiometrics.com On Oct 11, 2010, at 19:14, Brian Lloyd wrote: On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:55 PM, David McClain d...@refined- audiometrics.com wrote: Brian, I found the Fldigi system interesting... and at first you had me thinking someone had found a way around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in terms of making rapid measurements of fine frequency differences... Nope. TANSTAAFL. So I did some research on Fldigi, tried it out, and looked up AFC algorithms on Google... I found this really interesting survey article, with some real meat in it (not for the faint of heart): http://engnet.anu.edu.au/DEcourses/engn3214/notes/FDNatali.pdf At any rate, in there you find the DFT variant (discrete Fourier Transform) which Fldigi may, or may not, be using. fldigi is an open source software project. You can download the code and poke at it if your are of a mind to do that. At any rate, I'm right at home with FFT's and I could readily see that there is no speedup by using a tracking filter. It takes the same amount of time to approximate fine frequency deviations, no matter how you do it. I wouldn't expect there to be any speedup. That is very reassuring to me, having spent much of my career trying desperately to estimate things like precession periods of incoming nuclear warheads, (which are around 100 mHz), based on only a few seconds of observations... But what is great about Fldigi, compared to SpectrumLab, is that the tracking filter approach performs a kind of continuous averaging for you, in displaying the estimated tracked frequency. Yes, it does. But it is still changing too rapidly and you just can't get a feel for where the mean or RMS value is. That is why I take the csv data that fldigi produces and then massage that. Plotting it (equivalent to your strip chart below) is necessary for me to get a feeling for the kinds of periodic errors present in the data. However, I tried using SpectrumLab last night, where I produced a strip-chart of the estimated FFT frequencies. SL uses FFT bin interpolation, on the assumption that (a) SNR is good and high, (b) no nearby interfering signals, and (c) they know the shape of the windowing function. It is a fancier form of DFT AFC than described in the paper (above). There is a huge advantage to having a strip chart recording because, instead of trying to estimate changing trends by eyeballing individual measurements as they come flying past, you can actually see the p-p frequency deviations and the chatter on top of the longer term cyclic trends. Fldigi seems to use hard-coded loop bandwidths and capture ranges. 2 Hz capture range, 5 sec integration time. Good, but I would sure like to be able to tweak those myself. Yup! But since fldigi is open source, you should be able to add in the knobs to let you tweak the capture range and integration time. I could also see changing the coefficients of the tracking filter on-the-fly depending on rate-of-change of frequency. SpectrumLab also has its limitations in that there aren't sufficient computational capabilities built into its tiny analysis programming language. I can imagine that. I was planning to develop some tools using Mathematica. It has a number of intrinsics that might make massaging that data useful. (Oh, how I dream of just doing it all myself in Lisp, with Lisp fully present all the time... that way you can make up ad-hoc measurements that would never have been thought of until you need them. Closed systems can't possibly anticipate every need. I'm getting dangerously close to rolling up my sleeves and just doing it. If I do, then I'll share with everyone too...) I agree with this. Have things running inside your programming environment where you can change anything you want on-the-fly seems very cool to me. We have gotten so used to static, unchanging applications that are, frankly,
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Thanks for the info. I wanted to try this but lacked the motivation to set everything up. My Thunderbolt is still in its ebay box... This is just the poke I need to get going. Bill KJ4SLP On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.netwrote: Several links at Connie's website http://www.k5cm.com/ Jerry W4UK At 07:08 PM 10/9/2010, Richard W. Solomon wrote: Where can I find some literature on measurement equipment and techniques ? Thanks, Dick, W1KSZ -Original Message- From: Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.net Sent: Oct 9, 2010 4:00 PM To: Jeff Singer jsin...@i1.net Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT I did, and got within 27 mHz for one of the runs with my GPSDO'ed 5000a. Better than 0.1 Hz on three of the four. Brian, WB6RQN, got within 5 mHz on one!!! I got within 10 mHz on a test awhile back. One problem with the 5000a is that the tuning step size is pretty big. Sound card programs like Spectrum Lab or FLDIGI can help. I have used both in the past. Jerry W4UK At 06:14 PM 10/9/2010, you wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Another question from this total newbie to frequency measurement... A friend has offered me (as in free, come get it) a Spectracom NetClock/GPS 9283. Is this (1) suitable as a frequency reference for my 5000a and (2) useful for the FMT exercises? Also, can someone point me to any kind of beginner's guide or tutorial? Many thanks, Bill Spectracom NetClock/GPS 9283 On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 10:25 AM, William H. Fite omni...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the info. I wanted to try this but lacked the motivation to set everything up. My Thunderbolt is still in its ebay box... This is just the poke I need to get going. Bill KJ4SLP On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.netwrote: Several links at Connie's website http://www.k5cm.com/ Jerry W4UK At 07:08 PM 10/9/2010, Richard W. Solomon wrote: Where can I find some literature on measurement equipment and techniques ? Thanks, Dick, W1KSZ -Original Message- From: Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.net Sent: Oct 9, 2010 4:00 PM To: Jeff Singer jsin...@i1.net Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT I did, and got within 27 mHz for one of the runs with my GPSDO'ed 5000a. Better than 0.1 Hz on three of the four. Brian, WB6RQN, got within 5 mHz on one!!! I got within 10 mHz on a test awhile back. One problem with the 5000a is that the tuning step size is pretty big. Sound card programs like Spectrum Lab or FLDIGI can help. I have used both in the past. Jerry W4UK At 06:14 PM 10/9/2010, you wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
http://www.spectracomcorp.com/Portals/0/products/pdf/NetClock_GPS-Model_9283.pdf It has a 10 MHz output, so could be made to work with the 5000a. You might have to adjust level. My thunderbolt was approx 3 dB too hot, so I ran it through a TV antenna splitter to drop 3 dB. It needs a GPS antenna - maybe he has it. Join the FMT-nuts reflector (see www.k5cm.com ) and ask for more there - someone may be using it already. Jerry W4UK At 01:29 PM 10/10/2010, William H. Fite wrote: Another question from this total newbie to frequency measurement... A friend has offered me (as in free, come get it) a Spectracom NetClock/GPS 9283. Is this (1) suitable as a frequency reference for my 5000a and (2) useful for the FMT exercises? Also, can someone point me to any kind of beginner's guide or tutorial? Many thanks, Bill Spectracom NetClock/GPS 9283 On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 10:25 AM, William H. Fite mailto:omni...@gmail.comomni...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the info. I wanted to try this but lacked the motivation to set everything up. My Thunderbolt is still in its ebay box... This is just the poke I need to get going. Bill KJ4SLP On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Jerry Flanders mailto:jefland...@comcast.netjefland...@comcast.net wrote: Several links at Connie's website http://www.k5cm.com/http://www.k5cm.com/ Jerry W4UK At 07:08 PM 10/9/2010, Richard W. Solomon wrote: Where can I find some literature on measurement equipment and techniques ? Thanks, Dick, W1KSZ -Original Message- From: Jerry Flanders mailto:jefland...@comcast.netjefland...@comcast.net Sent: Oct 9, 2010 4:00 PM To: Jeff Singer mailto:jsin...@i1.netjsin...@i1.net Cc: mailto:flexradio@flex-radio.bizflexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT I did, and got within 27 mHz for one of the runs with my GPSDO'ed 5000a. Better than 0.1 Hz on three of the four. Brian, WB6RQN, got within 5 mHz on one!!! I got within 10 mHz on a test awhile back. One problem with the 5000a is that the tuning step size is pretty big. Sound card programs like Spectrum Lab or FLDIGI can help. I have used both in the past. Jerry W4UK At 06:14 PM 10/9/2010, you wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List mailto:FlexRadio@flex-radio.bizFlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List mailto:FlexRadio@flex-radio.bizFlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List mailto:FlexRadio@flex-radio.bizFlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List mailto:FlexRadio@flex-radio.bizFlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base
[Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
I did, and got within 27 mHz for one of the runs with my GPSDO'ed 5000a. Better than 0.1 Hz on three of the four. Brian, WB6RQN, got within 5 mHz on one!!! I got within 10 mHz on a test awhile back. One problem with the 5000a is that the tuning step size is pretty big. Sound card programs like Spectrum Lab or FLDIGI can help. I have used both in the past. Jerry W4UK At 06:14 PM 10/9/2010, you wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Where can I find some literature on measurement equipment and techniques ? Thanks, Dick, W1KSZ -Original Message- From: Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.net Sent: Oct 9, 2010 4:00 PM To: Jeff Singer jsin...@i1.net Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT I did, and got within 27 mHz for one of the runs with my GPSDO'ed 5000a. Better than 0.1 Hz on three of the four. Brian, WB6RQN, got within 5 mHz on one!!! I got within 10 mHz on a test awhile back. One problem with the 5000a is that the tuning step size is pretty big. Sound card programs like Spectrum Lab or FLDIGI can help. I have used both in the past. Jerry W4UK At 06:14 PM 10/9/2010, you wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Hi Jeff, For about $150 you can get a used Trimble Thunderbolt GPSDO that will give you a precision 10 MHz reference signal to put into your Flex Radio. Tune in WWV and watch the Phase display. The rotation is from Doppler. After parking the rig at a convenient frequency a couple of hundred Hertz below the signal of interest, I use PowerSDR to record a receive post-processing USB wave file while the test is going on. I run the free Spectrum Lab software while playing back the wave file and watch the signal on the Spectrum Lab waterfall. You can see it wander in frequency when the propagation changes. Add that audio frequency to the frequency displayed in PowerSDR. I make my best guess for the middle of the Doppler swings and send it in. My PC is nothing special, just an AMD Athlon 64 2 GHz and Windows XP. Oh, and download the free Lady Heather software for monitoring your Thunderbolt. An awesome program. The ARRL FMT is on November 10th. Join the fun. It's not about reading to the milli-Hertz; it's about developing your skills in frequency measurement. Mike - AA8K On 10/09/2010 06:14 PM, Jeff Singer wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
An additional source of error is the fact that the 5000 does not tune continuously. It tunes in steps, and they are irregular, so an additional correction is required. When you are watching your WWV phase display, a part of the error you see may be due to this. This may not be important unless you are trying for sub -100 mHz accuracy. Jerry W4UK At 07:12 PM 10/9/2010, AA8K73 GMail wrote: Hi Jeff, For about $150 you can get a used Trimble Thunderbolt GPSDO that will give you a precision 10 MHz reference signal to put into your Flex Radio. Tune in WWV and watch the Phase display. The rotation is from Doppler. After parking the rig at a convenient frequency a couple of hundred Hertz below the signal of interest, I use PowerSDR to record a receive post-processing USB wave file while the test is going on. I run the free Spectrum Lab software while playing back the wave file and watch the signal on the Spectrum Lab waterfall. You can see it wander in frequency when the propagation changes. Add that audio frequency to the frequency displayed in PowerSDR. I make my best guess for the middle of the Doppler swings and send it in. My PC is nothing special, just an AMD Athlon 64 2 GHz and Windows XP. Oh, and download the free Lady Heather software for monitoring your Thunderbolt. An awesome program. The ARRL FMT is on November 10th. Join the fun. It's not about reading to the milli-Hertz; it's about developing your skills in frequency measurement. Mike - AA8K On 10/09/2010 06:14 PM, Jeff Singer wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT
Several links at Connie's website http://www.k5cm.com/ Jerry W4UK At 07:08 PM 10/9/2010, Richard W. Solomon wrote: Where can I find some literature on measurement equipment and techniques ? Thanks, Dick, W1KSZ -Original Message- From: Jerry Flanders jefland...@comcast.net Sent: Oct 9, 2010 4:00 PM To: Jeff Singer jsin...@i1.net Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] My Rookie Performance in the Recent FMT I did, and got within 27 mHz for one of the runs with my GPSDO'ed 5000a. Better than 0.1 Hz on three of the four. Brian, WB6RQN, got within 5 mHz on one!!! I got within 10 mHz on a test awhile back. One problem with the 5000a is that the tuning step size is pretty big. Sound card programs like Spectrum Lab or FLDIGI can help. I have used both in the past. Jerry W4UK At 06:14 PM 10/9/2010, you wrote: Thanks for the alert on the K5CM Frequency Measuring Test a few nights ago. That test uses two stations to send a CW carrier on 160, 80 (twice) and 40 meters. A FMT is something totally new to me. My only preparation was to calibrate the radio carefully against WWV using its built-in scope. My receiver was in the DSB mode. I used the scope to guess-timate the frequency to an additional decimal point. Few entrants use a radio alone. Many have costly GPS based frequency calibration sources or the like and complex schemes to interpret the frequency. Experience counts. So does speed, since you only have three minutes to come to a conclusion. In other words, my entry wouldn't threaten the experts who come within one or two MILLI-hertz. But my stock Flex did very well. Three of my four readings were within 1/2 Hz. On 40 meters I was off by .96 Hz. QRN on 40 made the weak signal difficult to read on the scope. Still, accuracy was better than .25 PPM on each reading, well within Flex specs. Anyone else participate? Jeff K0OD ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
