Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Reminder about call today

[George Nychis]

Interesting thought. Powerline communications have been discussed for quite a while, but they tend to be horrible channels (old copper, long distances, bad shielding, etc.). So yes, I'd expect OFDM for the equalization and multipath (or 'echos' in this case) issues and heavy channel coding are required.

My main question regarding this topic is to figure out what would be necessary to create a test bed to try it out on? Obviously, we aren't going to stick the Rx/Tx port of the USRP into a wall socket :)

Trust me, I am far from an EE person, so ignore any outrageous misunderstandings ;)  I guess this will start as more of question:  since we can't stick Rx/Tx directly in to a wall socket... what actually needs to happen to stick an Rx/Tx in to a wall socket?  I'm guessing a bunch of filtering goes on with the actual power, but beyond that I have no clue.  I guess part of this is I was wondering if it is feasible to develop a frontend to stick a USRP in to a wall socket.  Then, due to the horrible channels you mention, I think it makes for an interesting/feasible 3 month project to get communication through to power line with those channels.  Even measurement on what those channels are like would be interesting, and I know whatever might come out of this would really open up the ability for the academic community to directly research power line networks.

Thanks, Tom!

- George