JT9 is a mode designed for amateur QSOs at MF and LF. The mode uses the same 72-bit structured messages as JT65. Error control coding (ECC) uses a strong convolutional code with constraint length K=32, rate r=1/2, and a zero tail, leading to an encoded message length of (72+31)*2 = 206 information-carrying bits. Modulation is 9-FSK: 8 tones for data, one for synchronization. Sixteen symbol intervals are used for synchronization, so a transmission requires a total of 207/3 + 16 = 85 channel symbols. Symbol durations tsym are approximately (TRperiod-8)/85, where TRperiod is the T/R sequence length in seconds. Exact symbol lengths are chosen so that nsps, the number of samples per symbol (at 12000 samples per second) is a number with no prime factor greater than 7. This choice makes for efficient FFTs. Tone spacing of the 9-FSK modulation is df=1/tsym=12000/nsps, equal to the keying rate. The total occupied bandwidth is 9*df. The generated signal has continuous phase, and there are no key clicks. Parameters of five JT9 sub-modes are summarized in the following table, along with S/N thresholds measured by simulation on an AWGN channel. Numbers following "JT9-" in the sub-mode names specify the T/R sequence length in minutes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mode nsps nsps2 df tsym BW S/N* Tdec Tfree Factors 12000 1500 (Hz) (s) (Hz) (dB) (s) (s) of nsps nfft3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JT9-1 6912 864 1.736 0.58 15.6 -26.9 52.5 7.5 2^8 3^3 2048 JT9-2 15360 1920 0.781 1.28 7.0 -30.2 112.3 7.7 2^10 3 5 2048 JT9-5 40960 5120 0.293 3.41 2.6 -34.4 293.6 6.4 2^13 5 6144 JT9-10 82944 10368 0.145 6.91 1.3 -37.5 591.0 9.0 2^10 3^4 12288 JT9-30 252000 31500 0.048 21.00 0.4 -42.3 1788.5 11.5 2^5 3^2 5^3 7 32768 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Noise power measured in a 2500 Hz bandwidth. NB: nfft3 might be doubled and used with a sin^2 window. Transmitting ------------ 1. Source encode the structured message to 72 bits 2. Apply convolutional ECC (K=32, r=1/2) to yield (72+31)*2 = 206 bits 3. Interleave to scramble the bit order 4. Assemble 3-bit groups to make (206+1)/3 = 69 symbols 5. Gray-code the symbol values 6. Insert 16 sync symbols ==> 69+16=85 channel symbols, values 0-8 Receiving --------- 1. Apply noise blanking with the timf2 method 2. Filter to 1000 Hz bandwidth and downsample (1/8) to 1500 Hz, saving complex data to array c0(2,700,000). 3. Compute spectra at half-symbol steps. Use for waterfall display s(22000) and save in ss(184,22000) and savg(22000) for detecting sync vectors. 4. At time Tdec, find sync vectors in ss(); get approx DF or list of DFs 5. Do full-length FFT, NFFT1=96*nsps2, zero-padded as required. 6. For each candidate signal, do inverse FFT of length 1536 (or 3072?). This yields 16 complex samples per symbol; sync tone should be close to zero frequency. 7. Use afc65b method to get improved values of DF, DT. 8. Tweak freq and time offset to 0. 9. Compute 8-bin spectra of 69 data symbols: ssym(0:7,69). Re-order the bins to remove Gray code. 10. Compute soft symbols for 206 bits (bit 207 is always 0). 11. Remove interleaving 12. Pack bits into bytes, send to Fano decoder 13. If Fano succeeds, remove source encoding and display user message.