[Ground-station] Upcoming channelizer test opportunity

[Michelle Thompson]

OK here's some additional details for the local tuneup party.

"The July SDMG meeting and Tuneup party will now take place on the 4th
Monday of July, July 22.
This will be our annual 10 GHz and up tuneup party at my home. Bring your
complete rigs as you would operate in the field. We will have house power
available and I'll charge up a couple of 12V batteries as well.   We will
do a approximate measurements of ERP and MDS with the remote equipment
located about 220' near the back fence. Starting time is around 6:30 to
allow as much time as possible before dark.  Please let me know if you
would like to test equipment above 10 GHz. Lower bands may also be doable
if requested.
 - Kerry N6IZW"

Theseus Cores progress is coming along with a fix for the "timeout channel
0" submitted to the Ettus RFNoC codebase. You have to use a bit of git-fu
to get it into RFNoC install. This isn't ideal, as hand-crafting branches
is not the most straightforward or user-friendly experience. However, this
is (as we all know) very experimental and gets better over time. EJ Kreinar
and Phil Vallance have been super helpful and supportive to those of us
trying to get it working over the air!

If we can get a USRP configured to test at the 22 July event then we will
do (an document) it!

If we're just not ready in time, then there will be more tuning parties
later in the year. Either way, we'll get some great data with real radios!

-Michelle W5NYV




On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 7:48 AM Michelle Thompson <
mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:

> Of course!
>
> I want to test the polyphase filterbank channelizer at microwave
> frequencies on the air. Tuneup parties seem like a great environment for
> this.
>
> Channelizer could receive output tests from the rigs, in parallel, to
> measure performance of the channel separation and all that. This set of
> results should be compared to the single channel receiver results for the
> same set of radios.
>
> With a polyphase synthesizer, it seems like the rig receive tests could
> also be done and tested by SDR.
>
> This is a lot to pull together for this upcoming set of tuning parties.
> There are several reasons for a practical example at a real event.
>
> 1 Because it gives a deadline.
>
> 2 As a practical amateur radio function coming out of gnu radio and SDR.
> Show, don’t just tell, how gnu radio works at microwave with SDRs.
>
> 3 Demos are super! Tune up events are so much fun.
>
> Polyphase and multirate techniques are fundamental for enabling broadband
> channelized microwave stations in both space and terrestrial use. The more
> components we have working on the air, the closer we will be to a complete
> radio system.
>
> -mdt
>
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 04:53 Mike Seguin via Ground-Station
> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>
>> Hi Michelle,
>>
>> Could I get a bit more explanation of what you want to test?
>>
>> The North East Weak Signal Group (NEWS) gets together in a few weeks
>> (7/13) for our annual picnic and MDS/ERP testing. This year we will test
>> 10/24/47 GHz. In the past we'd also test 78 GHz, but we found we run out
>> of time!
>>
>> We have quite a group of stations that get together. Pic from 2016 of
>> the 47 GHz testing attached. We had seven stations that year on 47 GHz.
>> It keeps getting bigger.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> On 6/26/2019 6:57 AM, Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station wrote:
>> > Later in the summer we usually have at least one tuning party for the
>> > 2GHz and Up amateur radio contest. That would be a good opportunity to
>> > try on air testing with this channelizer at microwave.
>> >
>> > The way the test works is there is a transceiver just outside of near
>> > field range. Minimum discernible signal and output gain are the two
>> > numbers obtained. For the test it’s usually done serially, everyone
>> > using same frequency, one at a time.
>> >
>> > Channelizer wouldn’t replace that setup, but the event has lots of
>> > radios all in one place on all kinds of amateur Microwave bands so we
>> > should try and take advantage of it, assuming the channelizer will
>> > reliably work by then, and that we can put an SDR up on a pole and at
>> > least receive with it. 5GHz and 10GHz are straightforward. Above that,
>> > we need more RF RX gear.
>> >
>> > There is another similar event up in Los Angeles, around the same time.
>> >
>> > So, if you have a local Microwave Group that does something similar,
>> and
>> > want to test a channelizer, let me know. At the very least would be a
>> > fun paper for Microwave Update or GNU Radio Conference. And, an
>> > effective amateur radio demo of polyphase channelizers in practice.
>> >
>> > -mdt
>> > --
>> > -Michelle W5NYV
>> >
>> > "Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis."
>> >
>>
>> --
>>
>> 73,
>> Mike, N1JEZ
>> "A closed mouth gathers no feet"
>>
> --
> -Michelle W5NYV
>
> "Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis."
>
>
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