Very interesting, maybe my next project.
Thank you.
Thanks to You also. It would be great! I don't understand why nobody
was interested in TDF162 it's powerfull easy to access in whole Europe
I understand that DCF77 is famous but here in Poland I am able to
receive clean DCF77 signal mostly at 3 AM.
Well that is a good question. Oddly enough in my case it's simply because I had never heard of TDF162 despite of having looked into time signals occasionally over the years.
Looks like the range of TDF162, 3500Km, is plenty enough to get here in Helsinki, ~2300Km. DCF77 is closer but it's 200Km range makes it marginal here.
Well that is a good question. Oddly enough in my case it's simply because I had never heard of TDF162 despite of having looked into time signals occasionally over the years.
Looks like the range of TDF162, 3500Km, is plenty enough to get here in Helsinki, ~2300Km. DCF77 is closer but it's 200Km range makes it marginal here.
You can use (as I tried) 5 cm ferrite rod previously design for DCF77 receiving and replace capacitor - the new one should be about 48% of primary one. This will be ratio 77.5/162. It should be no problem with receiving TD162, perhaps decoding should involve 162 kHz quartz cristal I'm afraid.
Anyway You will be able to receiving TDF162 signal all time contrary to DCF77 in Your area.
Sorry I was not precise enough. I meant You can using ferrite rod plus coil on it plus capacitor - whole ferrite antena for DCF77 receiver/decoder but capacitor must be replaced with a new one with 48% of former value. This will save You a work to make a new ferrite antena and tim it. But signal decoding (perhaps "detection" will be proper word) may need 162 kHz cristal for local oscilator. In the case of DCF77 I have seen the dedicated ICS and two 77.5 kHz quartz cristals were used in final circuit.
Interesting idea. You remind me that I have here a ferrite rod and capacitor assembly that I salvaged from a cheap LCD "radio controlled" alarm clock. I bought such a clock a few years back and it did actually receive DCF77 here but went completely dead after two weeks, I got a replacement from the shop, that went dead too, I gave up with them and pulled it apart
That 162KHz xtal seems unobtainable. People have used 10368MHz crystals divided by 64 or 5184 and divide by 32 in some rather fancy and complex frequency standard circuits.
The most important is theold set of ferrite rod with capacitor. You should determine exact value of attached capacited and replace this capacitor with a new one which will be 48% of former one. Such an antena will be more than enough to easy receive TDF162 in Helsinki. 162 kHz xtal may be not neccessary. My knowledge about radio receiving/detection is very limited, but I found something called regenrative receive and receiver using PLL (like NE561) so may during short time I will supply more info how to use those ideas.
The most difficult may be digital conversion of time signal alone, using software and microcontroller.
Which is very much like like the receiver I built as a teenager which amazed be by being able to receive amateurs from South America in England! Mind you I did have a dipole wire antenna strung up between the trees in the garden. Not sure how well that would work on long wave with a ferrite antenna.
Somebody here has done RF demodulating with a Propeller if I remember correctly. This could be my long dought for project that uses tubes and Propellers!
There are NO contraindication to build old fashioned tube receiver. Moreover TDF162 is regular AM Radio Station therefore it probably broadcasts music and stuff like so, contrary to DCF77 which was designed exclusively for time signal seed. Even magic eye like EM34 or EM80 (I remember second of them when I was 12 years old, EM34 I had seen in really old radio receiver from 1930).
But the stairs begin when 162 kHz carrier frequency phase modulated must be translated into series "0" and "1", because alghorithm is exactly the same as in the case of DCF77. This modulation was called BPFSK, and let me have some more hours to read how it can be "detected" [in radio-techniques language].
This may be extremly difficults to do and also extremly difficult to understand, I presume.
I will not expect problems with this matter! After I have used antena from DCF77 commercial clock change capacito to a new one, I connected the whole thing to scope and
observed slightly noisy sine with pick-to-pick about 0.5-1 mV, so this 2000 kW means - signal is really strong!
You will have any problem with this, here in Warsaw, using described antena I have had slightly noisy sine peak-to-peak 1-2 mV. You will probably will get not less than 1 mv or so. It's 2000 kW transmitter anyway.
Exactly as You wrote. I took 'redesigned' antena and connect it directly to scope. Scope was set up 0.1 ms/div and 5 mv/div. Approximate readings was ~1 mV.
So some kind of aplifier with +50 dB with AVG should be enough. May be some kind of C tuning will be neccesary.
Here is a nice little receiver circuit that looks like it has an RF gain of 100 that might get you nearly 100mv of audio output. http://www.stormwise.com/project10.htm
Here is a nice little receiver circuit that looks like it has an RF gain of 100 that might get you nearly 100mv of audio output. http://www.stormwise.com/project10.htm
I love that 'PCB'! This is what I call surface mount
Oh yeah! It really is a printed circuit. Print the schematic and nail the components to it.
I have built prototype audio tube amps using the nail in wood technique but never transistor. But I know some guys who were taught some electronics in school using exactly that technique. They still have their planks of wood working thirty years later!
This is for such a low frequency RF application I guess it can still work well.
Wood. Nails. Yeah.
Here's my 5 channel hifi crossover filter. Calculated on a HP1000 using Basic entered by Teletype and stored on ASCII paper stips. Wow, am I old (body only).
Oh, Jeese, now you remind me. I built a pair of two way crossovers that look very similar to that a few years back. Same expensive caps. Now where did they get to...
Maybe I think too short, but it's not easier to measure the frequency deviation of the carrier signal?
A change in the phase of 1rad / 25ms should lead to a change in frequency of 6.37 Hz
can we not measure this?
Edit: This would be also difficult ( 6Hz / 162 KHz )
So the best is to use a CIC Filter, like the artikle in elektor 09-2012.
@zbigniew169: Is it possible to read the TDF162 decoding describtion, without have a google konto ?
Hope this is not too offtopic, but there is a Software Defined Radio works only with a soundcard and a long wire.
Designed for rx the 17.2 kHz VLF Transmitter from Sweden.
I think this is very good teaching to learn about SDR.
I download the zip file.
The exe run without problems on my Linux with wine ;-)
I tried that for fun years ago just a wire into the sound input and running baudline http://www.baudline.com/ All kind of weird traces turned up.
Problem is the signal we are interested in is 162kHz, a bit more than you can handle with a computer sound system. So one would probably want a little RF amplifier like the FET circuit in previous posts here. And then a local oscillator and mixer to shift the frequency down to the sound card bandwidth.
Then in might help to have that LC tank to tune the input.
Presumably the phase modulation can be recovered from the shifted frequency in software. Might be a good way to try out ones decoding algorithms in the luxury of a PC environment.
I have lready receive 20 pcs of 10,368MHz quartz cristals, I had ordered from China month ago. One must ordered 20 pcs as a minimal amount. I propose I will send single crystal to first four persons from Europe who will promiss to make any kind of study regarding TDF162 time receiver. And also to everyone who will study project shown on this page: http://www.rvq.fr/tech/fi.php#ref4
Our disscussion was quench know, but I still think that TDF162 time receiver is important matter to design, and 8-cogs Propeller is tool from a dream to do it.
Everyone interested please writem a pvt e-mail, I promise I will do what I wrote above, may be not immediately, because here in Poland the weather is not proper for work; we have >30 Celsujsz degree here.
Certainly interested. I have sent you a private forum message.
You are numer ONE. Please send me second pvt-email, containg so called Your snail mail adress,called also mailing address.[sorry I did not learn yet how to write pvt message... what s shame :-((( ]
Comments
Thanks to You also. It would be great! I don't understand why nobody
was interested in TDF162 it's powerfull easy to access in whole Europe
I understand that DCF77 is famous but here in Poland I am able to
receive clean DCF77 signal mostly at 3 AM.
Looks like the range of TDF162, 3500Km, is plenty enough to get here in Helsinki, ~2300Km. DCF77 is closer but it's 200Km range makes it marginal here.
You can use (as I tried) 5 cm ferrite rod previously design for DCF77 receiving and replace capacitor - the new one should be about 48% of primary one. This will be ratio 77.5/162. It should be no problem with receiving TD162, perhaps decoding should involve 162 kHz quartz cristal I'm afraid.
Anyway You will be able to receiving TDF162 signal all time contrary to DCF77 in Your area.
Interesting idea. You remind me that I have here a ferrite rod and capacitor assembly that I salvaged from a cheap LCD "radio controlled" alarm clock. I bought such a clock a few years back and it did actually receive DCF77 here but went completely dead after two weeks, I got a replacement from the shop, that went dead too, I gave up with them and pulled it apart
That 162KHz xtal seems unobtainable. People have used 10368MHz crystals divided by 64 or 5184 and divide by 32 in some rather fancy and complex frequency standard circuits.
The most difficult may be digital conversion of time signal alone, using software and microcontroller.
Somebody here has done RF demodulating with a Propeller if I remember correctly. This could be my long dought for project that uses tubes and Propellers!
But the stairs begin when 162 kHz carrier frequency phase modulated must be translated into series "0" and "1", because alghorithm is exactly the same as in the case of DCF77. This modulation was called BPFSK, and let me have some more hours to read how it can be "detected" [in radio-techniques language].
This may be extremly difficults to do and also extremly difficult to understand, I presume.
For starters I would be happy receive and tune in to whatever they broadcast, anything we can see on a scope. Music to listen to would be a bonus:)
After we have a nice signal it sounds like your PPL suggestion is required for phase demodulation.
observed slightly noisy sine with pick-to-pick about 0.5-1 mV, so this 2000 kW means - signal is really strong!
Do you really mean you took the signal straight from the ferrit+coil+capacitor with no other circuitry?
So some kind of aplifier with +50 dB with AVG should be enough. May be some kind of C tuning will be neccesary.
http://www.stormwise.com/project10.htm
I love that 'PCB'! This is what I call surface mount
Erlend
Oh yeah! It really is a printed circuit. Print the schematic and nail the components to it.
I have built prototype audio tube amps using the nail in wood technique but never transistor. But I know some guys who were taught some electronics in school using exactly that technique. They still have their planks of wood working thirty years later!
This is for such a low frequency RF application I guess it can still work well.
Here's my 5 channel hifi crossover filter. Calculated on a HP1000 using Basic entered by Teletype and stored on ASCII paper stips. Wow, am I old (body only).
Erlend
Oh, Jeese, now you remind me. I built a pair of two way crossovers that look very similar to that a few years back. Same expensive caps. Now where did they get to...
Here is a link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0aH_PSA0MuERlFhSDVlbFQyeGM&authuser=0
A change in the phase of 1rad / 25ms should lead to a change in frequency of 6.37 Hz
can we not measure this?
Edit: This would be also difficult ( 6Hz / 162 KHz )
So the best is to use a CIC Filter, like the artikle in elektor 09-2012.
@zbigniew169: Is it possible to read the TDF162 decoding describtion, without have a google konto ?
http://www.elektor-magazine.com/fileadmin/E-book_AVR_Software_Defined_Radio.pdf
but I found this page:
http://www.rvq.fr/tech/fi.php#ref4
very promissing.
I have found also alternate source of 10.368MHz (64 times 162kHz ) quartz cristals:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Passive-quartz-crystal-20PCS-LOT10-368M-Crystal-10-368MHZ-HC-49S-passive-line/1178674_32297475270.html
Hope this is not too offtopic, but there is a Software Defined Radio works only with a soundcard and a long wire.
Designed for rx the 17.2 kHz VLF Transmitter from Sweden.
I think this is very good teaching to learn about SDR.
I download the zip file.
The exe run without problems on my Linux with wine ;-)
Includes sourcecode and basic blockdiagram.
Maybe interesst for other ?
Problem is the signal we are interested in is 162kHz, a bit more than you can handle with a computer sound system. So one would probably want a little RF amplifier like the FET circuit in previous posts here. And then a local oscillator and mixer to shift the frequency down to the sound card bandwidth.
Then in might help to have that LC tank to tune the input.
Presumably the phase modulation can be recovered from the shifted frequency in software. Might be a good way to try out ones decoding algorithms in the luxury of a PC environment.
but I found this page:
http://www.rvq.fr/tech/fi.php#ref4
very promissing.
I have found also alternate source of 10.368MHz (64 times 162kHz ) quartz cristals:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Passive-quartz-crystal-20PCS-LOT10-368M-Crystal-10-368MHZ-HC-49S-passive-line/1178674_32297475270.html
I have lready receive 20 pcs of 10,368MHz quartz cristals, I had ordered from China month ago. One must ordered 20 pcs as a minimal amount. I propose I will send single crystal to first four persons from Europe who will promiss to make any kind of study regarding TDF162 time receiver. And also to everyone who will study project shown on this page:
http://www.rvq.fr/tech/fi.php#ref4
Our disscussion was quench know, but I still think that TDF162 time receiver is important matter to design, and 8-cogs Propeller is tool from a dream to do it.
Everyone interested please writem a pvt e-mail, I promise I will do what I wrote above, may be not immediately, because here in Poland the weather is not proper for work; we have >30 Celsujsz degree here.
You are numer ONE. Please send me second pvt-email, containg so called Your snail mail adress,called also mailing address.[sorry I did not learn yet how to write pvt message... what s shame :-((( ]
You are not alone with not understanding this´brain damaged new P.M system. Give me a minute or ten.