I have strong opinions about doing the job with the right tool. A better approach is to do wideband surveillance using more appropriate tools. One could use the GnuRadio/USRP widget or the DCP-1/KD6OZH widget to begin this job quite nicely. Since you really want to demonstrate the impact of the interference on regular operations, the goal would be to have the wideband instruments quickly find likely candidate frequencies for interference content and then, through computer control, tune the narrow band resource do the actual evidence (sound file) capture. Since you are not likely to get really accurate frequencies with the wideband equipment, without needing a huge number of samples and very large FFT's on what will probably not be that coherent anyway, I would think a receiver capable of 40Khz to 80Khz bandwidth would be better. While not inexpensive, the SDR-1000 can be used at that bandwidth. Since we are not really after super performance here, I would think we could get away with cheaper receivers but this would have to be thought out carefully since this is the "evidence" gathering instrument.
I would suggest a search strategy doing ham band wide chunks (so you could put some filtering in front of the FPGA based widgets) and have them direct the narrow band resource when and where to record. If we separated antennas sufficiently, and used (say) GPS tamed clocks for the oscillators for the sampling, you could do time difference of arrival geolocation of the emitter. I need ten day weeks and 140 hour days and two more bodies. ;-) Bob N4HY -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jeff Burns Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 1:56 AM To: 'Elecraft List' Subject: [Elecraft] Automated BPL Interference Data Collection. I read recently that a BPL trial is starting in my state. The trial is not near my QTH, but it made me think I should document my current noise environment before BPL moves into my community. What is a practical way to get the documentation? I have a few ideas that require programming a computer. I will present them hear in the hope that someone will develop the software. My first thought was to scan through all the HF bands with a camcorder set to look at my transceiver. This way the audio and frequency would be documented. By periodically tuning to WWV, the exact time and date would also be documented. The biggest problem with this is the time required to manually scan the radio. If the process could be automated, data could be collected during all hours of the day, and my time at the radio can be spent making QSO's. --------- snip ------------------------------------------ Jeff Burns AD9T _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
