Look at the FLL; It's nothing but a system that locks on tho the energy
that goes through a pass band's edges; if there's suddenly more energy
in the upper edge band, it corrects the frequency so that it follows up,
and vice versa.
However, 0.07% = 700 ppm. I've never met an oscillator that bad; the
worst you can buy on mouser.com is 200ppm, and I don't think someone
who's building RF eval boards will use something like that. There's
something going horribly wrong with your hardware setup, here; probably
some oscillator control loop running wild, rotten to the core.

Best regards,
Marcus

On 24.05.2016 23:52, Rob Croce wrote:
> Marcus, thank you for all the suggestions.  This is a great group. 
> Yes for development I do not need the Zedboard, but for my
> experimental system I need this to interface with my receiver
> circuitry.  And yes it turned out to be a software/OS system issue
> which I fixed.     
>
> I was able to figure out the frequency counter, thanks for the
> suggestions about the implementation.  
>
> A last issue I am facing and wondering if there is anything that can
> be done is that my carrier frequency of my transmitter is drifting by
> ca. +/- 3 MHz (0.07%),(this is a separate issue I will deal with). 
> However for now, this is causing me to have to re adjust the LO
> receiver frequency on my GNUradio script when I no longer see the
> received pulses, in order to re-"find" the carrier frequency.  My RX
> bandwidth is set to 20MHz (I tried higher too) so I am unsure why a
> +/- 3MHz would drift the signal out of range.  I am simply taking
> Complex-to-Mag on the received signal.  
>
> My question is, is there anyway in GNURadio that I can automatically
> find the center frequency peak and update the LO frequency while the
> program is running so I don't lose the signal?  Or, implement a wider
> receive bandwidth.      
>
> Per your last comment, the RFComm block is here:
>  https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/linux-software/gnuradio
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 3:05 PM, Marcus Müller
> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Rob,
>     >When I boot my system, I get the below error.  When I try to log
>     out from the Applications Menu, I get the error below that.  Any
>     suggestions wold be great as I am stuck at the moment.
>
>     to be brutally honest: you don't need a zedboard to run GNU Radio
>     to prototype this kind of thing: Just grab anything that contains
>     GNU Radio and runs on your development PC; for example, the GNU
>     Radio live DVD. I'm very sorry, but this looks like there's some
>     OS/environment specific problem with what you're running on the
>     Zedboard, and the discuss-gnuradio mailing list might really not
>     be overly helpful with that.
>
>     >  It seems the script is not receiving/time-stamping the incoming
>     signal correctly.  I think it may be in the way I am configuring
>     the FMComms2 block to take in my data but I am not sure. In the
>     below plots, the frequency counter is showing around 2.5kHz, but
>     my modulating frequency on my transmitter is set to 49.94k
>      
>     Hm, the main thing here is that you of course need to scale the
>     length of the moving average and its scale factor according to
>     your actual sampling rate. There's nothing in my flow graph that
>     would react to any time stamps: It only sees a sequence of numbers
>     and assumes you used the right sampling rate in calculating these
>     settings. Otherwise, you'll get something that is off by some
>     factor. So make sure the RFComm source is really running at the
>     320kSps you configured it to. And, of course, get rid of the
>     throttle block – a throttle block does nothing but slow down the
>     amount of samples processed per second, and should never be used
>     in a flow graph that contains an actual hardware sink/source.
>     Generally, in this kind of DSP, there's no "additional" info like
>     sample times or rates attached to samples – they're nothing but
>     numbers in a very long row of numbers
>
>     When you look at your time signal plot, you'll notice a little
>     more than about 7.5 signal periods in what is displayed as 3ms –
>     which would be 2kHz, not the 49.9kHz you claim. So, I'd look into
>     that; if you don't use the same LO to generate the tone, however,
>     then a frequency offset of ca 47kHz at a center frequency of
>     4.2514 GHz is about 11ppm – that's not an overly great value for a
>     frequency accuracy, but would still be in the league of possible
>     things (as we know nothing on what lurks below the RFComm3 block
>     so far ;) ).
>
>     Best regards,
>     Marcus
>
>
>     On 17.05.2016 18:44, Rob Croce wrote:
>>     Marcus, sorry I have not responded to your suggestions but I have
>>     issues with my system, maybe the experts here can provide some
>>     guidance.  GNURadio fails to open so I cannot run my tests.  
>>
>>     When I boot my system, I get the below error.  When I try to log
>>     out from the Applications Menu, I get the error below that.  Any
>>     suggestions wold be great as I am stuck at the moment.
>>
>>     I am running GNURadio on the Zedboard with the ADI FMComms3.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 10:26 AM, Marcus Müller
>>     <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>>         Hi Rob,
>>
>>         hope I didn't come on too cross yesterday; of course, the
>>         frequency counting method works just as well, if you know
>>         your edges are sharp and you can pinpoint a certain threshold.
>>
>>         I come from a very SDR-y background myself, and so I always
>>         presume your signal quality will need significant rework
>>         until you can just measure the distance between two rising
>>         edges. And instead of doing that, I'd just look for the peak
>>         in the FFT (or do a parametric frequency estimation, or
>>         something else – more often than not, the optimum way either
>>         depends heavily on the model of your signal, or it's not even
>>         easy to find one optimal method, because many methods work).
>>
>>         That being said: You could implement your own frequency
>>         counter. In fact, doing so can be extremely simple:
>>
>>         You could simply count the number of edges during e.g. one
>>         moving average period.
>>
>>         The idea would then be to convert your edges to single-sample
>>         impulses; to do that, I'd high-pass your input signal; in
>>         fact, a filter that just subtracts the last sample from the
>>         current one (taps=1,-1) will do just fine for sharp edges
>>         (use an optimized (=bandpass?) filter and/or a schmitt
>>         trigger (the Threshold block acts like on) before that filter
>>         if your signal doesn't work like that ).
>>         Since we only care about rising edges, let's cut off all the
>>         negative edges by using a Threshold block, and then sum
>>         everything up using the "moving average" block (which I think
>>         we should rename to "running sum"):
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         Best regards,
>>         Marcus
>>
>>
>>         On 13.05.2016 14:37, Rob Croce wrote:
>>>         Thank you for the suggestions.  I do in fact come from a
>>>         very analog background, I have implemented many frequency
>>>         counters in micro's, so I am thinking in this way.  I will
>>>         try the suggestions on FFT/frequency sinks. 
>>>
>>>         On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 4:58 PM, Marcus Müller
>>>         <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
>>>         wrote:
>>>
>>>             By the way, I can barely decipher your screenshot. I
>>>             strongly recommend using the screenshot functionality of
>>>             your operating system instead of using a camera to
>>>             digitize the analog lightwaves that were generated from
>>>             a screen that converted the digital picture to light...
>>>             that being said, I don't really understand your question
>>>>             The time between rise and fall is known since it is
>>>>             plotting it on the time axis,
>>>             So: What is the very definition of "frequency"? Right,
>>>             it's the rate at which a periodic thing happens.
>>>             so you measure the time distance between two rising
>>>             edges, and do 1/that, and instantly have the frequency.
>>>             That's a very "analog measurement device" or "cycle
>>>             counting" way of doing this.
>>>>             oscilloscope calculates and displays a frequency number.
>>>             Hm. What do *you* think the oscilloscope does?
>>>             Dan's recommendation was absolutely on-spot. Use a
>>>             spectrum/fft sink. If you don't understand what
>>>             "spectrum" is, read a bit wikipedia :) That's really the
>>>             easiest way I could think of.
>>>             Other than that, read up on autocorrelation, and how to
>>>             calculate it in a DSP system.
>>>
>>>             Best regards,
>>>             Marcus
>>>
>>>             On 12.05.2016 22:38, Rob Croce wrote:
>>>>             OK thanks.  I just need to display a number for the
>>>>             frequency of the pulses.  The time between rise and
>>>>             fall is known since it is plotting it on the time axis,
>>>>             so I am wondering if there is anyway I can extract
>>>>             frequency that way.  Similar to frequency counting on a
>>>>             micro, or how an oscilloscope calculates and displays a
>>>>             frequency number.
>>>>
>>>>             On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 4:30 PM, Dan CaJacob
>>>>             <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
>>>>             wrote:
>>>>
>>>>                 I would need more details about what you're trying
>>>>                 to accomplish, but my first reaction would be to
>>>>                 attach an FFT GUI sink.
>>>>
>>>>                 On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 4:26 PM Rob Croce
>>>>                 <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
>>>>                 wrote:
>>>>
>>>>                     Hi all.  I have transient pulses that I am
>>>>                     displaying using the transient plot, and I am
>>>>                     wondering how I can display the frequency of
>>>>                     the pulses.  The duty cycle is similar for all
>>>>                     pulses, just the frequency is varying.  Is
>>>>                     there a simple way to do this?  
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>                     _______________________________________________
>>>>                     Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
>>>>                     [email protected]
>>>>                     <mailto:[email protected]>
>>>>                     https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>>>>
>>>>                 -- 
>>>>                 Very Respectfully,
>>>>
>>>>                 Dan CaJacob
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>             _______________________________________________
>>>>             Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
>>>>             [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>>>>             https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>>>
>>>
>>>             _______________________________________________
>>>             Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
>>>             [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>>>             https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

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