20 December 2015

pseudo-random frequency hopping


Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) is a method of transmitting radio signals by rapidly switching the carrier among many frequency channels using a pseudo-random sequence known to both transmitter and receiver(s). The heard packets in this sample have a duration of 2520 ms, frequency shift ~ 20 Hz and 20 data bits carried (other similar transmission have been noted with 2460 ms and 24 data bits, same shift) and span up a 2 MHz bandwidth, this recording has been on 13 MHz band.



12 December 2015

playing with MS-DMT (MIL-STD Data Modem Terminal)

The MS-DMT application is a software defined modem based communications terminal tool developed as a Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) based Multi-threaded 32 bit application. It is currently designed to run under MSWindows XP SP3 and later versions of both 32 and 64 bit MS-Windows operating systems. The tool is written in C++ using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 compiler and requires the installation of the VS2008 C++ runtime redistribution libraries which are part of the full MS-DMT install distribution only.
The MS-DMT tool functions as both a MIL-STD modem and basic data communications terminal and provides MARS a MIL-STD-188-110A (MS110A) compliant Serial Tone (ST) waveform modem based Message Terminal capability providing message composition and automated message storage to simplify MARS MS110A Forward Error Correction (FEC) message handling.
The software’s terminal provides numerous features to aid in message handling and the software also supports the use of more fully featured external asynchronous terminal applications. Additional features such as Data Link Protocol, Data Compression, Data Encryption and others may be added to the MS-DMT tool as required and in accordance with the specific standards as requested or left to implementation in external terminal applications.
You may use MS-DMT to build, decode and learn the MIL-STD 188-110 ST wavefvorm, the modem, along with other interesting resources and docs, can be downloaded from here:
MIL-STD Data Modem Terminal (MS-DMT) software and resources 





3 December 2015

MFSK-4 (double FSK) 96/100Bd 500Hz, Ukraine Military


This waveform is known as Double FSK 96/100 Baud and 500 Hz shift, a dual channel  mode used by Ukraine Military, spreading about a 1730Hz bandwidth and tones at -750, -250, +250 and + 750 Hz. Actually, there are two versions of this waveform:

96Bd-100Bd/500 heard on August 21th on 8008 KHz/usb (likely F7W mode?)
96Bd/500 heard on December 3rd on 6968 KHz/usb (F7B mode)

Site radioscanner.ru reports the first signal (08/21) as Ukraine Mil 96-100, the two baudrates indication (96 and 100) is due to some difficulties  in determining the speed of manipulation, due to the fact that the two transmission channels are not synchronized  with each other. The "double" speed is not present in the measurement results of the first signal (12/03): most likely the two channels are in sync and transmitted according to the F7B mode.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
96Bd-100Bd/500 waveform (likely F7W mode?)
https://yadi.sk/d/SvmC1_ajzVzAAw

96Bd/500 waveform (F7B mode)
https://yadi.sk/d/VHJYHLgg7ATdeA

2 December 2015

MFSK-4 150Bd 4000Hz (CIS FTM-4): the effective data-rate

This signal (reported here) is logged as FSK 4-tone with baudrate 150Bd and shift 4000Hz, or else CIS FTM-4 (Pic. 1). Looking in depth, they use only 4 of 24 combinations of the four tones (Pic. 2), so the encoded characters which are transmitted are reduced to 4.  This mode is called Frequency-Time Matrix (FTM) or, in this case, FTM-4. The coding method is five-digit group of characters plus spaces. The four symbols are:
A) 1-2-3-4
B) 2-4-1-3
C) 4-3-2-1
D) 3-1-4-2
Looking at the segment in Pic. 2, we could find the occurences of each symbol, for example "A" occurs 4 times, "B" occurs 3 times, "C" occurs 3 times and "D" occurs 3 times.
Since the baudrate of the signal, i.e. 150Bd, the real data-rate is 150/4 = 37.5 Baud. 

Pic. 1
Pic. 2
The repetitions of 4 symbols is clearly visible analyzing the demodulated bistream, unless some few errors due to the demodulation:

Pic. 3
The structure of the message seen has 48 bits period: some parts are well distinct
although it is unclear what they mean (sinc?, address?, commands?, ...)

Pic. 4