[TangerineSDR] PSWS Time Stamping Concept

[Tom McDermott]

HI Bill - thanks for documenting this.   The format of the 64-bit time
stamp
should be referenced.  My recommendation is NTP format.  We cannot use all
of
the precision that affords, and thus may want to consider setting the LSBs
to zero below
some accuracy limit.

The format is documented in: IETF RFC 5905 Section 6, "NTP Timestamp
format", figure 3.
page 13.
        https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5905
There are standard library tools to manipulate it.  Whilst UNIX time will
rollover in 2037,
my view is that standard methods, procedures, and standard code will emerge
to consistently handle it.
If we adopt a proprietary format, then custom code would otherwise need to
be crafted.

The fractional portion of one second is encoded as a 32-bit integer. The
LSB represents 0.233 nanoseconds.
We could consider setting the 5 LSBs to zero for the 50 nanosecond-ish
accuracy.  Then use those LSBs
later if some GPS receiver in the future had better accuracy.

-- Tom, N5EG









On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 1:09 PM Scotty Cowling via TangerineSDR <
tangerinesdr at lists.tapr.org> wrote:

> Hi Bill,
>
> Just to be clear, if the number of channels does not divide evenly into
> 1024, then a packet might not start with channel 0 I/Q samples.
>
> Is there a requirement that the time stamp immediately precede channel 0
> I/Q data? For example, a packet could look like this:
>
> CH0_I(0), CH0_Q(0), CH1_I(0), CH1_Q(0), CH2_I(0), CH2_Q(0), CH0_I(1),
> CH0_Q(1), CH1_1(1), CH1_Q(1), CH2_I(1), CH2_Q(1), CH0_I(2)...
> ...CH2_I(339), CH2_Q(339), CH0_I(340), CH0_Q(340)
>
> So you would start the next packet like this:
> CH1_I(340), CH1_Q(340), CH2_I(340), CH2_Q(340), CH0_I(341), CH0_Q(341)...
>
> If I put the time stamp at the beginning:
> <sync><time stamp>CH1_I(340), CH1_Q(340), CH2_I(340), CH2_Q(340),
> CH0_I(341), CH0_Q(341)...
>
> Then the time stamp would apply to the first and second I/Q pairs (CH1 and
> CH2) as well as to the last I/Q pair of the previous packet (CH0).
>
> If I always put the time stamp before CH0, then the time stamp would apply
> to the last I/Q pair of one packet and also to the first two I/Q pairs of
> the next packet.
>
> So are the time stamps always before CH0, or can they be anywhere?  I
> think for proper synchronization, they will have to be before CH0 only.
>
> Also, while it is clear that time stamps are sent periodically, that
> period is not specified anywhere. I think we need to specify that, don't
> we? Maximum count between timestamps? Maximum number of packets?
>
> Did you want to expand on the two commands (or methods) used by the SBC to
> set the two times (GPSDO and "best effort")?  We talked about an "arm"
> command that causes the time to be set on the next 1 PPS transition and an
> "immediate" command that sets the time immediately upon reception of the
> command.
>
> 73,
> Scotty WA2DFI
>
> On 2019-10-17 17:37, Engelke, Bill via TangerineSDR wrote:
>
> To all:
>
> Attached is our proposed concept for Time Stamping for PSWS data – for
> your review and comment.
>
> Note that this is primarily for the case where raw I/Q data is being
> stored in Digital RF format.
>
> Data recording will be a bit different in the low-bandwidth case where the
> I/Q data is to be processed by GNURadio running on the SBC, and FFT
> (waterfall) results are uploaded to the database.
>
>
>
> Dave: please post to TangerineSDR.com
>
>
>
> TNX ES 73 - W. D. Engelke (Bill), AB4EJ
>
> Center for Advanced Public Safety
>
> Cyber Hall
>
> The University of Alabama
>
> Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
>
> Desk: (205) 348-7244
>
> Mobile: (205) 764-3099
>
>
>
>
> --
> TangerineSDR mailing list
> TangerineSDR at lists.tapr.org
> http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/tangerinesdr_lists.tapr.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/tangerinesdr_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20191018/33cde4a1/attachment.html>