Signal Calculator

Carrier Measurement

Measure the S/N ratio of the steady carrier using the longest possible coherent measurement time (narrowest bandwidth) to obtain an average S/N. Ideally, use a similar time of day and duration to the intended messages.

S/N ratio of carrier:  dB   In bandwidth:  Hz, or measurement period:  seconds

Code Selection

Choose a code, symbol period, message length and decoder list size. Choose the constraint length K according to the capacity of your decoding computer. If you are confident of the clock accuracy of the PCs at both ends, choose a rate 1/16 code, otherwise rate 1/8 is a safer bet.

Select code:
  Rate 1/4 K = 19
  Rate 1/8 K = 19
  Rate 1/16 K = 19
  Rate 1/8 K = 21
  Rate 1/16 K = 21
  Rate 1/16 K = 23
  Rate 1/8 K = 25
  Rate 1/16 K = 25

Symbol period:  seconds     CRC bits:     Number of characters: 


Calculation Results

Eb/N0: 3.41 dB
Signal bits: 592
Duration: 1776 seconds, 00:29:36.00
Optimum list length: 280 (full phase search)
Optimum list length: 839 (uniform phase search only)
Percentage of channel capacity: 34.2
Additional info:
Information rate: 92.4 bits per hour
Information bits: 45.6
Outer code overhead: 10.4 bits
Inner code block size: 56 bits
Overall code rate: 1/12.98
S/N in 1Hz: -12.49 dB
Signal bandwidth: 0.333 Hz
Es/N0: -7.72 dB
Decoder memory: 0.7 Gbyte
Symbol error rate: 0.28
Shannon capacity: 270.21 bits per hour