All posts by scruss

My first FreeDV QSO

amateur radio, , , , , ,

FreeDV Digital Voice QSO in ProgressFreeDV is a fully open digital voice protocol; unlike DMR, D-STAR and the rest, there are no patents tying it down. It uses very little bandwidth for voice. I just had my first QSO (thanks K5WH in Texas!) using this mode. While it does make voices sound a little robotic, there’s no static, no hiss, nothing unwanted. That’s what always put me off HF voice: trying to work out who is saying what through all the noise. FreeDV fixes that.

It’s quite a new protocol, so you don’t hear it much on the air yet. I hope to be making some more noise with it soon.

Blueline / Black & Decker Power Monitor RF Packets

computers suck, ,

Given that I first started thinking about reverse-engineering the Blueline Powercost Monitor‘s data stream in September 2010, I hardly win any awards for rapid development. Here’s what I know so far about the device and its transmissions:

  • The Blueline unit and the (now possibly discontinued) Black & Decker Power Monitor (EM100B) appear to be functionally identical. Both transmit data using simple ASK/OOK at 433.92 MHz in the ISM band.
  • It is, however, completely different from the Norgo NGE101 meter.
  • The display unit is made by Hideki Electronic Limited, who make many small weather stations and wireless displays. [Pictures of the display circuit boards]
    Inside a Black & Decker Power Meter
  • The transmitter unit was designed by Intectus in Ottawa for Blueline. It uses a TI MSP430 µcontroller. [Transmitter board picture]
    Black & Decker Power Monitor: Meter Transmitter board
  • The transmitter can be triggered by simulating a power meter if you flash a 940 nm IR Emitter LED for 50 ms into its sensor. 1× 50 ms flash represents 1 Wh of power consumed. A pulse frequency of 1 Hz represents 3.6 kW consumption.
    Arduino-based domestic power meter simulator
  • The transmitter sends a bundle of three (seemingly) identical packets every 31.8 seconds. These appear to contain consumption data, as the display updates approximately every 32 seconds.
    a data packet bundle
  • A series of contiguous packets, recorded as audio using a simple circuit described by the Protocol Analyzer project: audio201311182215-silenced (FLAC; please note that interstitial silences have been blanked to reduce file size).
  • Temperature packets may be sent separately from power, as the display updates temperature much more slowly than power use.
  • Power packets only appear to contain use data (along with a transmitter ID). If the sensor receives an absolutely constant input, the packets transmitted 32 s apart can be identical.
    powermeter-203453vs203525
  • The packets appear to be Manchester-encoded.

Some rough notes on mark/space timing (all times in µs):

Mark : Mean    529.4 Min    499.0 Max    590.0 StdDev:   15.03 
Space: Mean    694.5 Min    385.0 Max   1474.0 StdDev:  281.57

Mark/space times, by frequency (all times in µs):

MARK
====

          µS
Rank     Value   Count
-------- ------- -----
     1         522  498
     2         544  206
     3         567   32
     4         499   32
     5         590    8

SPACE
=====

          µS
Rank     Value   Count
-------- ------- -----
     1         476  279
     2         975  223
     3         454   99
     4         952   65
     5         431   26
     6        1474   22
     7         408   21
     8         499   17
     9         998   12
    10      199000    8
    11         385    2
    12        1451    2

More later, including raw packet data.

Thanks to Randy Simons and Bryan Mayland for the recent help. Thanks too to Brett “Wiring” Hagman for asking just why I was trying to do this …

We won’t, we won’t Roku …

computers suck, , ,

Roku PSU Output

I’m pretty sure the 9V DC power supply for one of my Roku Soundbridges shouldn’t be doing that ↑↑ . This is the second unit I’ve had to replace, my other Soundbridge blowing its 5 V supply a couple of years back. This one cycles from 9.4 to 4.4 V about 5 times a second. Not very DC, but kind of lethargic for AC.

inside roku psu

It’s hard to tell, but one of the caps inside the rather complex little Unifive wall wart may have blown. I’ve scrapped the PSU and replaced it with a beefier one. It seems that power supplies are a problem (see: 1, 2, 3, 4) on these machines, so I wonder when/if I will need to replace this one.

Protext lives!

computers suck, , , , , , , ,

Protext screenshot (dosemu)

Oh man, Protext! For years, it was all I used: every magazine article, every essay at university (all two of them), my undergraduate dissertation (now mercifully lost to time: The Parametric Design of a Medium Specific Speed Pump Impeller, complete with spline-drawing code in HiSoft BASIC for the Amiga, is unlikely to be of value to anyone these days), letters — you name it, I used Protext for it.

I first had it on 16kB EPROM for the Amstrad CPC464; instant access with |P. I then ran it on the Amiga, snagging a cheap copy direct from the authors at a trade show. I think I had it for the PC, but I don’t really remember my DOS days too well.

The freeware version runs quite nicely under dosemu. You can even get it to print directly to PDF:

  1. In your Linux printer admin, set up a CUPS PDF printer. Anything sent to it will appear as a PDF file in the folder ~/PDF.
  2. Add the following lines to your ~/.dosemurc:
    $_lpt1 = “lpr -l -P PDF”
    $_printer_timeout = (20)
  3. In Protext, configure your printer to be a PostScript printer on LPT1:

The results come out not bad at all:

protext output as pdfProtext’s file import and export is a bit dated. You can use the CONVERT utility to create RTF, but it assumes Code page 437, so your accents won’t come out right. Adding \ansicpg437 to the end of the first line should make it read okay.

(engraving of Michel de Montaigne in mad puffy sleeves: public domain from Wikimedia Commons: File:Michel de Montaigne 1.jpg – Wikimedia Commons)