NMT-450 - partial success

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Sipos Csaba dchardware at gmail.com
Tue Oct 27 00:28:18 UTC 2020


It works!

Long story short: the LimeSDR-Mini was off by 3.5kHz, and not the phone.
Even after 30 years, the phone is only off by 14Hz, what a performance.
Made in West Germany :-))

After the recalibration of the LimeSDR Mini, the phone successfully updated
the TA and went to normal idle state. Calls are also possible, SMS will be
tested when a capable phone arrives. All  TA combinations were tested
(1-15).

Will create an updated patch for the country specific settings, now that it
is tested.

The lesson is: trust but verify :-) Especially with cheap hardware.

Regards,
Csaba

Tomcsanyi, Domonkos <domi at tomcsanyi.net> ezt írta (időpont: 2020. okt. 26.,
H, 19:54):

> Hello Csaba,
>
> I am not sure if you know this, wanted to mention it: you could easily
> measure your SDR’s oscillator accuracy using the kalibrate tool. It uses
> nearby GSM BTSs if I am correct to give you a good estimation about how
> much off your oscillator is.
> I used to use it with rtl-sdr a lot, because those USB dongles are crazy
> off in terms off accuracy.
> Once you have an offset figured out for the current temperature I guess
> you could try to offset the frequency set by osmocom by that amount. Maybe
> even try to expose it as a variable if needed.
> Other solution would be using some kind of a GPSDO or similar 10 MHz input
> if the LineSDR supports it.
>
> Sorry again if this is known info, but wanted to chime in with some
> hopefully helpful bits.
>
> Cheers,
> Domi
>
>
> 2020. okt. 26. dátummal, 16:08 időpontban Sipos Csaba <
> dchardware at gmail.com> írta:
>
> 
> Hi Ralph,
>
> I attached the patch for the country specific settings for Hungary, you
> can apply it against "master" . TAs are not yet verified, but the phone
> goes "green" with all TAs from 1 to 15. The RF part and country code are
> verified.
>
> > One thing, maybe your MCR has drifted, due to ageing?!
>
> Well, that was my first impression too, as if you look at my picture (
> http://www.imagebam.com/image/d17e881357285965 ) you will see that the
> center of the downlink and uplink transmissions are not exactly 10MHz
> apart, they have a couple kHz drift. On the picture the two markers are
> indicating the nominal frequency of the channel. As you can see the uplink
> burst is actually closer to the nominal frequency, compared to the
> downlink. It is not in the standard (or I was not able to find it, in
> general the RF spec is not very detailed...), so I am not sure if the SDRs
> downlink signal is off, and the phone is correct or the other way around.
> Although it sure looks like a low layer fault, as the NMT network is not
> even detecting is as bad or incorrect frames.
>
> I did a loopback test with a jumper between the TX and RX of the SDR and
> that seemed to work (frame level and frame quality were 90+%). On the other
> hand if the local oscillator would be off, the phone would not be able to
> lock on the DL signal as well. I have no high precision counter at home,
> but with a relatively primitive multimeter I was able to measure 12.7999MHz
> on the 12.8MHz local oscillator. And both identical phones behave the same.
>
> The question is if I can somehow offset the uplink frequency on the SDR
> side or via config/source modification to remove this couple kHz drift?
>
> If someone has seen a lot of these signals and can take a look at the
> image above, would be lovely to hear if any of the signals are off.
>
> I will also get another more "modern" phone hopefully soon, so I can try
> with that.
>
> Regards,
> Csaba
>
> Ralph A. Schmid, dk5ras <ralph at schmid.xxx> ezt írta (időpont: 2020. okt.
> 26., H, 15:33):
>
>> Hi Chaba,
>>
>>
>>
>> I have a Nokia handheld phone from Hungary, I can try with your settings
>> and let you know.
>>
>>
>>
>> Andreas seems to be difficult to reach these days, I found the same :/
>>
>>
>> With best regards
>>
>>
>> Ralph.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* OpenBSC [mailto:openbsc-bounces at lists.osmocom.org] *On Behalf Of
>> *Sipos Csaba
>> *Sent:* Monday, October 26, 2020 3:16 PM
>> *To:* openbsc-request at lists.osmocom.org <openbsc at lists.osmocom.org>
>> *Subject:* Fwd: NMT-450 - partial success
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> I know it is a bit off topic, but as osmocom-analog has no dedicated mail
>> list and my every attempt to contact Andreas lead to silence, I thought
>> this is the closest one to discuss it.
>>
>>
>>
>> I try to create an NMT-450 network with Motorola MCR4800XL phones, and a
>> LimeSDR-mini. As the phones are locked to "Hungary" using a specific raster
>> and a large gap in the middle, first I needed to dig out the details, find
>> out the country code and create a patch so at least the phone is willing to
>> lock onto the DS signal. I managed to do all that, so now the phone is
>> actually able to decode the network and lock onto the signal.
>>
>>
>>
>> My issue is with the uplink: when the phone tries Traffic Area update
>> (the phone's uplink transmission burts is clearly seen with a spectrum
>> analyzer), the network side is not able to detect the uplink burst at all.
>> Not even as bad, or incorrectly formatted frame. Andreas has a site which
>> describes how to set up the uplink side and do some tests:
>>
>>
>>
>> http://osmocom-analog.eversberg.eu/docs/sdr.html
>>
>>
>>
>> I followed that guide and when the uplink burst from the phone arrives,
>> the RX IQ constellation monitor indicates a correct burst with proper power
>> (the burst is nicely round and in the green area). If I try to set up a
>> call to the phone using the correct country code and phone number, the
>> phone clearly responds to the paging request, as the 3 paging attempt
>> generates 3 uplink bursts. Again, with no reception/decoding on the network
>> side. Tried with two phones of the same type, the effect is the same.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have two questions:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1. Where to send patches for the osmocom-analog project?
>>
>> 2. Does anyone have an idea what can be wrong with my setup?
>>
>>
>>
>> One more thing I noticed: compared to the channel frequency used to set
>> the NMT network up, the uplink is a couple kHz shifted:
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.imagebam.com/image/d17e881357285965
>>
>>
>>
>> As it can be seen, the uplink burst appears 3-4kHz left relative to the
>> downlink signal.
>>
>>
>>
>> The network is started with the following command:
>>
>> nmt -k 239 -k 235 -Y HU,1 --limesdr-mini --sdr-rx-gain 20
>>
>>
>>
>> Any and all help is appreciated.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Csaba
>>
> <0001-Add-country-specific-settings-for-Hungary.patch>
>
>
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