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Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

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Re: Eloran long test from now to August or September.

LJ
Lux, Jim
Thu, Sep 28, 2023 4:42 PM

On 9/27/23 8:15 AM, Lester Veenstra wrote:

Agree very old and multi used idea.
For the clever ones in DSP, penetrate a time coherent spread spectrum that can be inband but under the noise floor of the collection bandwidth.  Correlate on receive in the same sample environment as you are doing science.

Lester B Veenst

It doesn't even have to be below the noise floor, since once you've
correlated it, you can coherently subtract it.  In fact, with a strong
signal, the uncertainty in your correlation is smaller, so when you do
the subtraction, you're subtracting a "more precise" copy. One catch is
that you need to recover the amplitude accurately as well as the timing,
which means you might need some additional processing, since most
acquisition and tracking codes, like for GPS, are concentrated on good
timing performance and only getting a coarse estimate of the power.

If one wants to hunting the literature, I'd look for stuff on adaptive
cancellation of interferers and jammers. Typically looking at using 2 or
more GPS antennas/receivers to null out an interference source.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lux via time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts@lists.febo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 3:33 PM
To: jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr; time-nuts@lists.febo.com
Cc: Jim Lux
Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Eloran long test from now to August or September.

Exactly.. That does work, although it requires opening up your RTL-SDR (and on V3, in HF receiver mode, the RF input is directly coupled to the Q input, without going through the front end downconverter.). It didn’t work well.
And ultimately, I was trying to figure out something that would work at Ku band, so I could “calibrate out” the delay through the LNB, the coax, and the RTL-SDR.
The basic technique has been around since the 1960s.  Bracewell used it at Stanford, and a similar scheme was used for the Jansky VLA in New Mexico.

On Tue, 26 Sep 2023 19:24:21 +0000, jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr wrote:

I did it with 4 RTL-SDRs, and I’ll scrounge up the measurements. My first attempt was just to
couple the 1pps from a GPS module into the inputs - that’s not easily detectable (I was hoping that
the fast edges would be sufficiently broadband to be detectable in the sampled data stream -
nope..)

See attached: I capacitively inject the 1-PPS on the RTL2832 input (either I or Q), not
the R820(T2) radiofrequency frontend. This allows for timestamping on the rising edge
of GPS 1-PPS the datastream fetched by the ADCs of the RTL-SDR.

Best, JM


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On 9/27/23 8:15 AM, Lester Veenstra wrote: > Agree very old and multi used idea. > For the clever ones in DSP, penetrate a time coherent spread spectrum that can be inband but under the noise floor of the collection bandwidth. Correlate on receive in the same sample environment as you are doing science. > > Lester B Veenst It doesn't even have to be below the noise floor, since once you've correlated it, you can coherently subtract it.  In fact, with a strong signal, the uncertainty in your correlation is smaller, so when you do the subtraction, you're subtracting a "more precise" copy. One catch is that you need to recover the amplitude accurately as well as the timing, which means you might need some additional processing, since most acquisition and tracking codes, like for GPS, are concentrated on good timing performance and only getting a coarse estimate of the power. If one wants to hunting the literature, I'd look for stuff on adaptive cancellation of interferers and jammers. Typically looking at using 2 or more GPS antennas/receivers to null out an interference source. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Lux via time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts@lists.febo.com] > Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 3:33 PM > To: jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr; time-nuts@lists.febo.com > Cc: Jim Lux > Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Eloran long test from now to August or September. > > > > > > Exactly.. That does work, although it requires opening up your RTL-SDR (and on V3, in HF receiver mode, the RF input is directly coupled to the Q input, without going through the front end downconverter.). It didn’t work well. > And ultimately, I was trying to figure out something that would work at Ku band, so I could “calibrate out” the delay through the LNB, the coax, and the RTL-SDR. > The basic technique has been around since the 1960s. Bracewell used it at Stanford, and a similar scheme was used for the Jansky VLA in New Mexico. > > > On Tue, 26 Sep 2023 19:24:21 +0000, jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr wrote: > >> I did it with 4 RTL-SDRs, and I’ll scrounge up the measurements. My first attempt was just to >> couple the 1pps from a GPS module into the inputs - that’s not easily detectable (I was hoping that >> the fast edges would be sufficiently broadband to be detectable in the sampled data stream - >> nope..) > See attached: I capacitively inject the 1-PPS on the RTL2832 input (either I or Q), not > the R820(T2) radiofrequency frontend. This allows for timestamping on the rising edge > of GPS 1-PPS the datastream fetched by the ADCs of the RTL-SDR. > > Best, JM > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com > >
JF
jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr
Thu, Sep 28, 2023 5:27 PM

If one wants to hunting the literature, I'd look for stuff on adaptive
cancellation of interferers and jammers. Typically looking at using 2 or
more GPS antennas/receivers to null out an interference source.

If it can be of any use, Direct Signal Interference removal is implemented
as a least square optimization solution at
https://github.com/jmfriedt/passive_radar/blob/main/171210ship/goship.m#L70-L88
with ref the PRN code broadcast for timing and mes the recorded signal. This
solution was demonstrated to allow rejecting broadband GPS interference by 30 dB
but will not work well with narrowband interference (not the topic here), with no
detectable degradation of the positioning/timing capability of gnss-sdr (the
C++ implementation is in
https://github.com/oscimp/gnss-sdr-1pps/blob/master/0002-jamming.patch#L82-L129).

> If one wants to hunting the literature, I'd look for stuff on adaptive > cancellation of interferers and jammers. Typically looking at using 2 or > more GPS antennas/receivers to null out an interference source. If it can be of any use, Direct Signal Interference removal is implemented as a least square optimization solution at https://github.com/jmfriedt/passive_radar/blob/main/171210ship/goship.m#L70-L88 with ref the PRN code broadcast for timing and mes the recorded signal. This solution was demonstrated to allow rejecting broadband GPS interference by 30 dB but will not work well with narrowband interference (not the topic here), with no detectable degradation of the positioning/timing capability of gnss-sdr (the C++ implementation is in https://github.com/oscimp/gnss-sdr-1pps/blob/master/0002-jamming.patch#L82-L129).
BC
Bob Camp
Thu, Sep 28, 2023 5:34 PM

Hi

In this day and age, there is no absolute need to feed in something as broadband as a 1 pps edge. Yes, it is easy to just cable it “over there”. An alternative would be some sort of fairly simple phase modulated signal that is much more narrowband. Pick one you can generate with a couple chips. As you suggest, do the “correlation stuff” and come up with a very accurate time estimate of that signal. The advantage would be: You can take the “time signal” out with simple frequency domain filtering.

More or less:

Time signal runs from 8 to 12 MHz (or maybe a lot more narrowband than that ….)

Digital high pass shoves time signal “over there” and it gets processed.

Loran is < 1 MHz

Digital low pass shoves loran “over here” than then it’s processed.

No need to do the fiddly “subtract an exact image” stuff.

Yes, there are a lot of fiddly details to consider. Picking 100 KHz x 100 for your time tone carrier might not be a great idea. You would need to do a bit of work to come up with the ideal signal.

Bob

On Sep 28, 2023, at 12:42 PM, Lux, Jim via time-nuts time-nuts@lists.febo.com wrote:

On 9/27/23 8:15 AM, Lester Veenstra wrote:

Agree very old and multi used idea.
For the clever ones in DSP, penetrate a time coherent spread spectrum that can be inband but under the noise floor of the collection bandwidth.  Correlate on receive in the same sample environment as you are doing science.

Lester B Veenst

It doesn't even have to be below the noise floor, since once you've correlated it, you can coherently subtract it.  In fact, with a strong signal, the uncertainty in your correlation is smaller, so when you do the subtraction, you're subtracting a "more precise" copy. One catch is that you need to recover the amplitude accurately as well as the timing, which means you might need some additional processing, since most acquisition and tracking codes, like for GPS, are concentrated on good timing performance and only getting a coarse estimate of the power.

If one wants to hunting the literature, I'd look for stuff on adaptive cancellation of interferers and jammers. Typically looking at using 2 or more GPS antennas/receivers to null out an interference source.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lux via time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts@lists.febo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 3:33 PM
To: jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr; time-nuts@lists.febo.com
Cc: Jim Lux
Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Eloran long test from now to August or September.

Exactly.. That does work, although it requires opening up your RTL-SDR (and on V3, in HF receiver mode, the RF input is directly coupled to the Q input, without going through the front end downconverter.). It didn’t work well.
And ultimately, I was trying to figure out something that would work at Ku band, so I could “calibrate out” the delay through the LNB, the coax, and the RTL-SDR.
The basic technique has been around since the 1960s.  Bracewell used it at Stanford, and a similar scheme was used for the Jansky VLA in New Mexico.

On Tue, 26 Sep 2023 19:24:21 +0000, jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr wrote:

I did it with 4 RTL-SDRs, and I’ll scrounge up the measurements. My first attempt was just to
couple the 1pps from a GPS module into the inputs - that’s not easily detectable (I was hoping that
the fast edges would be sufficiently broadband to be detectable in the sampled data stream -
nope..)

See attached: I capacitively inject the 1-PPS on the RTL2832 input (either I or Q), not
the R820(T2) radiofrequency frontend. This allows for timestamping on the rising edge
of GPS 1-PPS the datastream fetched by the ADCs of the RTL-SDR.

Best, JM


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To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com


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Hi In this day and age, there is no absolute need to feed in something as broadband as a 1 pps edge. Yes, it is easy to just cable it “over there”. An alternative would be some sort of fairly simple phase modulated signal that is much more narrowband. Pick one you can generate with a couple chips. As you suggest, do the “correlation stuff” and come up with a very accurate time estimate of that signal. The advantage would be: You can take the “time signal” out with simple frequency domain filtering. More or less: Time signal runs from 8 to 12 MHz (or maybe a lot more narrowband than that ….) Digital high pass shoves time signal “over there” and it gets processed. Loran is < 1 MHz Digital low pass shoves loran “over here” than then it’s processed. No need to do the fiddly “subtract an exact image” stuff. Yes, there are a lot of fiddly details to consider. Picking 100 KHz x 100 for your time tone carrier might not be a great idea. You would need to do a bit of work to come up with the ideal signal. Bob > On Sep 28, 2023, at 12:42 PM, Lux, Jim via time-nuts <time-nuts@lists.febo.com> wrote: > > On 9/27/23 8:15 AM, Lester Veenstra wrote: >> Agree very old and multi used idea. >> For the clever ones in DSP, penetrate a time coherent spread spectrum that can be inband but under the noise floor of the collection bandwidth. Correlate on receive in the same sample environment as you are doing science. >> >> Lester B Veenst > > > It doesn't even have to be below the noise floor, since once you've correlated it, you can coherently subtract it. In fact, with a strong signal, the uncertainty in your correlation is smaller, so when you do the subtraction, you're subtracting a "more precise" copy. One catch is that you need to recover the amplitude accurately as well as the timing, which means you might need some additional processing, since most acquisition and tracking codes, like for GPS, are concentrated on good timing performance and only getting a coarse estimate of the power. > > If one wants to hunting the literature, I'd look for stuff on adaptive cancellation of interferers and jammers. Typically looking at using 2 or more GPS antennas/receivers to null out an interference source. > > > >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Jim Lux via time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts@lists.febo.com] >> Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 3:33 PM >> To: jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr; time-nuts@lists.febo.com >> Cc: Jim Lux >> Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Eloran long test from now to August or September. >> >> >> >> >> >> Exactly.. That does work, although it requires opening up your RTL-SDR (and on V3, in HF receiver mode, the RF input is directly coupled to the Q input, without going through the front end downconverter.). It didn’t work well. >> And ultimately, I was trying to figure out something that would work at Ku band, so I could “calibrate out” the delay through the LNB, the coax, and the RTL-SDR. >> The basic technique has been around since the 1960s. Bracewell used it at Stanford, and a similar scheme was used for the Jansky VLA in New Mexico. >> >> >> On Tue, 26 Sep 2023 19:24:21 +0000, jeanmichel.friedt@femto-st.fr wrote: >> >>> I did it with 4 RTL-SDRs, and I’ll scrounge up the measurements. My first attempt was just to >>> couple the 1pps from a GPS module into the inputs - that’s not easily detectable (I was hoping that >>> the fast edges would be sufficiently broadband to be detectable in the sampled data stream - >>> nope..) >> See attached: I capacitively inject the 1-PPS on the RTL2832 input (either I or Q), not >> the R820(T2) radiofrequency frontend. This allows for timestamping on the rising edge >> of GPS 1-PPS the datastream fetched by the ADCs of the RTL-SDR. >> >> Best, JM >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com >> To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com >> >> > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com