Posts by F4HDK

Hello Georges, thank you very much for your message.

With NPR-VSAT, you don't have to set manually the precise location or distance to satellite.

A client station estimates the round-trip time (= Timing Advance), at each new connection, and it also measures and maintains this value constantly afterwards.

How? The client just reads its own signals.

The initial connection occurs in a dedicated "discovery time-slot". A very-large time-slot, in which unconnected clients send very-short radio frames for "connection request".

The unconnected client station sends almost in the middle of this discovery time-slot, in order to compensate the big Timing-Advance uncertainty.

A client station also saves automatically this Timing-Advance value locally (on the PC), for the next startup.

If you want to test this solution, you can contact me, preferably in private (e-mail f4hdk at free dot fr, or via private forum message).

I only provide the binary/executable and the source code for the "client" part. I would host the VSAT-Hub, for these tests.

Hello,

You will find another solution for IP over QO-100: NPR-VSAT. Link below:

Thread

NPR-VSAT : IP access over QO-100 WB

I have developed the protocol /solution : NPR-VSAT.
It allows low datarate IPv4 access over the QO-100 WB transponder.
It could be used for low-datarate Hamnet access.

Documentation, source code, binary:
http://f4hdk.free.fr/NPR_VSAT/
(sorry for the quick-and-dirty website, I will do better soon).
You should read the "user guide" first if you are interested.


Current status:
The current version is usable for beta-tests.
In parallel, I am under discussion with AMSAT-DL.
At short term, we are allowed to…

F4HDK

Feb 26th 2023

I propose that we discuss about NPR-VSAT only in the new discussion-thread, dedicated to NPR-VSAT, in order not to be "off topic" here.

I have developed the protocol /solution : NPR-VSAT.

It allows low datarate IPv4 access over the QO-100 WB transponder.

It could be used for low-datarate Hamnet access.

Documentation, source code, binary:

http://f4hdk.free.fr/NPR_VSAT/

(sorry for the quick-and-dirty website, I will do better soon).

You should read the "user guide" first if you are interested.

Current status:

The current version is usable for beta-tests.

In parallel, I am under discussion with AMSAT-DL.

At short term, we are allowed to make short duration tests (~30 min maxi).

It is currently too early to say if we could have one day a permanent 24h/day unattended NPR-VSAT Hub station. I dream of it, it would be the ultimate achievement.

It depends also on the interest and acceptance of the "community".

If you are interested by the project, if you want to test it at short term, you can contact me. E-mail : f4hdk at free dot fr

Do not hesitate to share with us the "usages" that you imagine if you had such an IP access.

Some characteristics of NPR-VSAT:

- Inherited from my previous project "NPR-70" New Packet Radio

- Runs on PC, either Windows or Linux

- runs with full duplex SDR, preferably Adalm-Pluto

- MF-TDMA (multi-frequencies Time-Division-Multiplexing-Access)

- Multi users, probably one or several dozens of simultaneous users

- low data-rate, 20kb/s to 100kb/s for users

- dynamic resource allocation

- up to 4 or 5 channels, each 50kS/s or 100kS/s or 200kS/s

- modulation BPSK or QPSK

- coordination via a central station, the VSAT-Hub

- full-mesh : client stations communicate directly with each others

Hello,

Quote from DB2OS

1) A kind of PACSAT BBS or HamNet access

as described above...

About the point 1, a short term solution for IP/Hamnet over QO-100, what do you think about my proposal to port my NPR protocol to QO-100 WB, like described in my previous post? Do you find that it would be useful or not?

Quote from DB2OS

2) A successor for P4-A which would replace the Analog Linear Transponder Downlink by a regenerative digital transponder with a single DVB-S2 downlink.

About the point 2, it is similar to what P4B, in the USA, planned to do a few years ago.

In my opinion, it is far from optimal (it's only my opinion):

- A pure "bend pipe", like QO-100, is much better for experimenters like us, in order for evey motivated OM to experiment new things on his own.

- The number of simultaneous TX stations is (very) limited.

Quote from DB2OS

Part of the Uplink would be still "linear" as it is for SSB/CW/etc., but just like a remote SDR which will stream the "passband" down as I/Q data on the DVB-S2 downlink.

Another topic about "point 2" I’ve not understood the "narrow band SDR" that you propose, inside the satellite. If you want to capture 100kHz RF bandwidth at uplink side, then you need more than 24bits x 100kHz= 2.4Mbps for IQ samples of each channel, for 12bits IQ sample resolution, to the downstream. This induces a huge RF bandwidth need at downlink (~2MHz with QPSK) compared to a pure “bend pipe” solution (~100kHz). Therefore, unless I have not understood something, I don’t think that it’s a good idea.

73, Guillaume F4HDK

Hello,

I'm the inventor of "New Packet Radio" (NPR), take a look here: https://hackaday.io/project/164092

My thoughts about the discussion:

DVB-S(2) is only well suited for a continuous stream of data at constant bitrate. It's not well suited for burst IP trafic, like we have most of the time when we use IP (web page browsing, e-mail exchange, text tchat). Especially when we consider uplink trafic (from users to servers) for dozens of users, then dozens of constant bitrate channels become a waste of precious radio ressources.

I think I could adapt my NPR protocol (which already transports IP over radio) in order to fit on a portion of the QO-100 WB transponder. It would need lots of modification, but it should be feasible. We could name it "NPR-VSAT".

It could be MF-TDMA (Multiple Frequencies Time Division Multiplexing Access), therefore using multiple timeslots inside multiple frequencies/chanels (for example 5 chanels, each 200kHz wide). Stations would transmit by bursts (instead of continuously for DVB-S2).

A central station (the satellite hub) would allocate dynamically (in real time) these ressources (frequencies and timeslots) between users, according to their need.

All this would be SDR-based, I will try the Adalm Pluto and Lime SDR Mini. The topology could be full-mesh, multipoint to multipoint.

Each user station would transmit on one single frequency at a time (switching fastly between frequencies when needed), and each user station would listen to all frequencies/chanels simultaneously (with one single SDR, it should be feasible).

It would be more efficient than pure DVB streams because of the "burst" type of trafic.

The modulation scheme would be probably less efficient than DVB-S2: 4-levels GMSK seems easy to implement for burst radio frames.

But all together, I still see a great overall improvement compared to the DVB-S2 uplinks initially proposed.

We could even associate it with one single IP-over-DVB downstream channel from the central satellite hub point (Bochum?), in order to optimize the "server to client" trafic.

I agree with DL4OCH : This downstream could even share a single DVB-S2 carrier/chanel with the existing "beacon video".

- "Hub to user" trafic would be IP over DVB.

- "User to user" and "user to hub" IP trafic would be NPR-VSAT.

Tell me what do you think about this ambitious idea.

Do you think it could be usefull that I work on such a project?

Do you accept other modulation scheme than DVB over QO-100 WB?

If we start working together, it would take a lot of time developing such a project, probably more than one year, but I think it’s feasible (not 100% sure yet). For example, it took me 2 years to develop NPR: 1 year for having a proof of concept, and 1 additional year to reach a useable solution.

I'm currently quite busy with my NPR-70 project, but I could start working on this QO-100 project rapidly.

And that's really the kind of thing I like to develop!

Do you know if someone else has already begun to work on an equivalent project?