tools to generate 188-110A channel probes... and not only them

19 July 2021

tools to generate 188-110A channel probes... and not only them

I recently checked the 188-110A transmissions - referred to in this post - characterized by a secondary protocol not (yet) identified, the purpose was to verify if in the meantime some novelties had intervened such to shed a more light on the protocol itself: the attempt, however, was unsuccessful... though I paid more attention to the 188-110A channel probes patterns. After demodulating the signal, he channel probes do not show regular (known) patterns as instead it should happen, according to what is indicated in the documentation and looking at a synthesized waveform (figure 1).

Fig. 1 - synthesized and real-world 188-110A 2400bps

During the periods where channel probe symbols are to be transmitted, the channel symbol formation output is set to 0 (000) except for the two known symbol patterns D1 and D2 preceding the transmission of each new interleaved block. The symbol formation output is then scrambled with the three bits supplied by the randomizing generator, a 12 bit shift register with the functional configuration shown on figure 2.
The shift register is pre-loaded with the initial pattern 101110101101 or 0xBAD and advanced eight times. Since after 160 transmit symbols the shift register is reset, each 480 transmist symbols the scrambler will produce the same ten patterns for the 16-symbols channel probes.

Fig. 2 - 188-110A randomizing generator

As you can see, the patterns are so alternating that it looks like an artificial "variation", even if this "effect" is due to poor signal reception (mostly fading). The bitstream of figure 1 are obtained at the output of a generic PSK8 demodulator (SA), so I don't know exactly how a specific demodulator for 188-110A reacts to such sequences of the channel probes; probably it does not lose the synchronism ... even if some doubts arise about the exact demodulation of the signal (thank goodness that FEC exists).

However, I have decided to spend some time examining the sequences generated by this circuit. As shown in figure 2, the randomizing generator implementation is a x^12+x^6+x^4+x+1 LFSR which is converted into its "one-to-many" counterpart, ie the most-significant bit is fed back directly into the least significant bit, and is also individually XORed with the other bits 6,4,1. Notice that using this style means that there is never more than one level of combinational logic in the feedback path, irrespective of the number of taps being employed in the traditional "many-to-one" implementation (increasing the levels of logic in the combinational feedback path can negatively impact the maximum clocking frequency).
At first I used two excellent "software" simulators: the first for PC - LFSR testbench, figure 3 [1] - the second for Samsung android tablet - Logic Simulator pro, figure 4 [2]. As soon as possible - or as soon as I recover the missing components - I will try a hardware simulation using my Arduino board.