Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] detecting spectrum holes

[Alexander List]

On 01/-9/-28163 03:59 AM, Abdelrahman Ahmed wrote:

i'm new to this ,i need your help on how to start detecting spectrum in TV band and holes in this spectrum.

Ahmed,

though others will probable be able to give you more in-depth directions wrt spectrum sensing, just out of curiosity, what's your use case?

Are you looking into TV white spaces? [1]

Most likely you'll want to use the USRP1 with WBX because I assume it has better sensitivity than TVRX.

Why would you want to transmit anything if you're just looking into analyzing spectrum usage in TV channels?

LP0410 is covering the right frequency band for UHF (400 MHz to 1 GHz), but it is a directional antenna. Is that what you want? Otherwise, you might be better off using an omni antenna, preferably on a roof...

Here are a few pointers to papers on TV white spaces:

http://www.openspectrum.eu/drupal6/node/23

I've posted some of the key issues on this list two years ago:

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/205328

Dyspan has some nice papers on spectrum sensing as well:

http://www.ieee-dyspan.org/2010/
http://cms.comsoc.org/eprise/main/SiteGen/DYSPAN_2010/Content/Home/Technical_and_Policy_Program.html

Now to the setup:

Hardware / sample data

I have a USRP1, two WBX, USRP1 N210 and an PC hardware available as well, so unless you're in a closed source / NDA environment, we could set up a code repository on github, and I could provide you with sample recordings from Hong Kong to cross-check detectors.

Regulatory environment / signals too look for

What is your location? From your signature, I assume you're in the Middle East, and I guess we're talking mostly about DVB-T signals. Is there still analog TV transmission around, wireless microphones, ...?

gnuradio packages on Ubuntu

The gnuradio packages that come with Ubuntu 10.04 are most likely a bit outdated, so you might want to upgrade your laptops to 11.10 first.

10.04 contains 3.0.4-2ubuntu1 (http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/gnuradio)
11.10 contains 3.2.2.dfsg-1ubuntu7 (http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/gnuradio)

Once you've got 11.10 with the latest packages installed, you might want to test your setup with some of the gnuradio examples, like a basic FM receiver to tune in a local radio station.

Hope this helps for a start - please let us/me know on the mailing list if you need more input :)

Alex

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spaces_(radio)