Optical
communications
using
coherent
and
noncoherent
light
Top: A 3-watt red Luxeon LED at
a distance of 14.82 miles (23.85 km) with downtown
Salt Lake City in
the foreground, as viewed from the south end of
the path and looking
toward the northeast. north end of the path
and looking toward
the southwest with a 300mm equivalent zoom..
Photo by Clint, KA7OEI. Bottom: On the same path, but looking
in the
opposite direction (toward the southwest), with
downtown Salt Lake City
(and the city cemetery) in the foreground and the
3-watt LED in the
background. Photo by Gordon, K7HFV. Click on either image for a full-sized version.
The original question:
Did you even wonder if the
phase-coherence of Laser light might impede the effective
transmission
of
amplitude-modulated intelligence on an optical communications
circuit
over an atmospheric path, and whether or not noncoherent light
may
provide superior performance under similar conditions? I
did, so
I decided to check it out.
Initial
setup:
For this test, which occurred on 4/25/07, I was on the west side
of the
Salt Lake valley
while Gordon, K7HFV and Ron, K7RJ were in the northeast corner
of the
valley, near
the Salt Lake City cemetery - a distance of 14.82 miles (23.85
km.) This optical path crosses a "bowl-shaped" valley and
cuts
across part of downtown Salt Lake City. Often within this
valley,
thermal stratification occurs, often disturbed by diurnal air
movement. With another large valley (with a large body of
water)
located to the south, and the Great Salt Lake located to the
north,
such air movements are very common - not to mention cold air
that often
"falls" down the mountain canyons, causing further mixing of the
air
volume.
On this evening the temperature was about 55 degrees F (13
C) at the start and there was only a very slight breeze.
Interestingly,
despite fairly calm air, all of us noticed
that it seemed that the city lights "flickered" more than they
had done
during previous tests. Once a voice communications link
had been
established using the Luxeon LED and
Fresnel lens systems (achieving in excess of 40dB
signal/noise
ratio, despite interference from urban lighting) and I set
up the
equipment for the evening's main
experiment.
Figure 1:
Top: Relative spot sizes and shapes of the
LED (left) and
laser (right.) The color and saturation of the two
spots has been
exaggerated to make them easier to see. Center: The
spectra of
the Laser. Bottom: The
spectra of
the LED. Note that there was some "thickening" of
both spectral
lines owing to saturation of the camera's imager. Click
on
the
image
for
a larger version.
The experiment - Coherent
versus
Noncoherent light:
The objective of this evening's experiment was to quantify the
difference in scintillation between coherent light as emitted by
a
laser diode and noncoherent light as emitted by a standard
LED:
It has been suggested in research (by NASA, Olga Korotkova,
and
others) that nonuniformities (e.g. "cells" of air
with different temperature, pressure, and humidity) in the air
volume
between two sites would result in greater apparent scintillation
when
using coherent light sources as compared to noncoherent light
sources.
While we had done a similar experiment during the previous
testing, it
wasn't
really a
fair comparison: Previously, the light from the LED was
emitted
by a
fairly large aperture (a 250mm by 318mm Fresnel Lens) while the
cross-section
of the beam from the Laser pointer was only a few millimeters in
diameter. Because the amount of scintillation is strongly
related
to the size of both the emitting aperture and detecting
aperture,
by this fact alone the Laser's signal would have experienced
more
scintillation.
This time, we wished to avoid this disparity so we decided to do
two
important things:
Use exactly the
same optics for
both the coherent (Laser) and noncoherent (LED)
transmissions.
Use exactly the
same optics for
reception of both sets of signals.
Because of the distance (about 15 miles) it was necessary to use
good
optics to collimate the beam, so I decided to interface to an 8
inch
(20.3cm) reflector telescope (a Celestron C8) that I have.
The
effective aperture
of this telescope, taking into account blockage by the secondary
mirror, is approximately 50.27 square inches (approx. 289 square
cm) -
a respectable size.
Several months ago, I happened to note that a local hardware
store had
Laser levels on a clearance sale for $3 each, so I bought
several of
them, knowing that the $3 price tag was a good price for the
Laser
alone. Attacking the level with a variety of tools (which
destroyed the level, as it turns out) yielded a self-contained
Laser
module that ran directly from 3 volts.
As is, the Laser module could not usefully illuminate the
telescope's
optics owing to its very low divergence, so I unscrewed the lens
from
the laser module in
order to defocus the beam
to a divergence suitable for interfacing with the telescope's
optics.
While this significantly "de-focused" the beam, it was still far
too
narrow to be useful: To
remedy this, I removed the plastic lens from the Laser module,
turned
it around, and re-installed it, thereby increasing
the amount of divergence, allowing me to more-efficiently
illuminate
the telescope's
optics.
The optical outputs of typical Laser diodes have a property that
complicates efficient beam collimation: They produce a
narrow,
"fan" beam
- a property illustrated in Figure
1.
Without
complicating
the
optics,
it is difficult to "capture" most of
the beam's energy (using some sort of optical device that
would
have been
capable of making the beam more
rectangular) and properly illuminate the optics of the
telescope,
so
the only other option is to only take the very "center" of the
beam,
discarding the majority of the optical energy: If the beam
is
collimated too strongly before being applied to the telescope,
the
collimated beam would fully not fill the aperture and would be
cut off
on the sides.
For the noncoherent light source, I found a large (10mm) LED in
my LED
collection - a Radio Shack
P/N 276-086. This LED is rated for an optical output of
5000 mcd
at 36
milliamps with a beamwidth of 30 degrees at a wavelength of 660
nm -
very close to the same wavelength of the Laser, as can be seen
in Figure
1.
When testing, I could tell that the LED's built-in lens did not
efficiently illuminate the telescope's optics (that is, the
LED's beam
was so wide that much light was "wasted" off to the sides) but I
was
satisfied,
when comparing the optical output of the LED with that of the
Laser
through the telescope,
that sufficient light was available, so I did not add
any extra optics. Interfacing
the
LED
and
Laser
modules to the telescope:
On the telescope, I used a standard
1-1/4 inch
eyepiece mount and mirror-type star
diagonal, so it made sense to use it to hold the Laser and LED
modules. Rummaging around my scrap metal pile, I found
some
aluminum
tubing
that was exactly the right size to slide into the
compression-mount
eyepiece holder. To mount the LED and Laser, I
found
some old Thermalloy (tm) TO-5 transistor aluminum heatsinks
which fit
inside some gray ABS pipe that I had laying around.
The Laser module and LEDs were first glued to the TO-5 heat
sink, and
after
this, the heat sink (with the LED or Laser attached) was then
glued
inside a piece of ABS pipe, shimmed to center it properly.
To
mount the ABS section inside the
aluminum
tubing - and to provide a means of precise optical alignment - I
drilled and tapped three 8-32 screws: These setscrews can
be seen
in the pictures of Figure 2.
To
optically
align
the
LED/Laser,
the
screws were loosely tightened and
then, using a thin-blade screwdriver, I was able to reach in and
adjust
the orientation of the emitter and adjust the setscrews as
necessary
until it was properly aligned with the
telescope's optics. After this, the set screws were
tightened,
alignment re-checked, and then the screws and ABS piece was
glued into
place.
When installed (see the
bottom image
of Figure 2)
the light
output of
both the Laser and LED completely illuminated the entire
aperture of
the telescope. Further testing also revealed that the beam
could
be easily focused by the telescope to provide best possible
collimation. Driving
the
Laser
and
LED:
The only practical "easy" way to linearly modulate a typical
Laser
module is to use PWM
(Pulse Width Modulation) techniques. Because the Laser
module
already included the circuitry necessary to be operated directly
from a
3 volt battery, I simply constructed a voltage regulator using
an NPN
transistor and two red LEDs to provide a regulated 3 volt
source.
Because the PWM circuit uses a current sink as its output stage,
it was necessary to provide a loading resistor to provide enough
load
for the circuit to work, so the output from the modulator
was paralleled with a 20
ohm resistor: With proper adjustment of the drive current,
the
Laser module was properly driven with the PWM waveform, yielding
good-sounding, linear modulation.
Interfacing the LED was much easier: A 150 ohm series
resistor
was used to limit the current to the LED to a peak value of
about 60
milliamps while a parallel power resistor of about 17 ohms
was
used to provide loading for the modulator. While the 60
milliamp
current exceeds the maximum rating of
the
LED, the average current would be half of this, owing to the
nature of
the
PWM waveform.
Figure 2:
Top: The back end of the Laser
module. Center:
The front end of the
LED module. Bottom:
The
Laser
module
installed
in the telescope's eyepiece mount. Click
on
the
image
for
a larger version.
Aiming the telescope:
In our previous testing, it was noted that it was extremely
difficult
to
aim
the Laser pointer while it was mounted on a tripod.
Without
micrometer-type
adjustments, the slightest touch would knock the Laser
completely
off-point and without a sighting device, it was difficult to get
even
coarse pointing: The viscous "fluid head" of the tripod
turned
out to be more of a liability than an asset when trying to
precisely
adjust the aiming as it caused a slight amount of backlash in
adjustments.
The telescope has the obvious advantage in that it's a
telescope!
With the 3-watt Luxeon in operation from the far end, I had a
ready
visual reference
upon which I could train the telescope and with it, I could not
only
see the very bright red LED, but I could also individually
discern
Ron's and Gordon's
flashlights as they were standing near the optical transceiver
at their
end.
I then removed the eyepiece and substituted the Laser module, it
took
only very minor adjustments (of both pointing and focusing) to
peak the
signal, using my own received test tone being heard via the
optical
link from the far end.
Comment: Later measurements indicated that the
laser's
horizontal beamwidth was on the order of 0.07 degrees while
the
horizontal beamwidth of the LED in the telescope was roughly
0.2
degrees - both measured from the points at which each became
visible,
and then disappeared again.
Comparisons
of
the
signal
quality
of
the Laser versus the LED:
According to Ron and Gordon, the perceived luminous intensity of
the
Laser was about the same as that of the 3 Watt Luxeon with the
Fresnel
lens, but it was easy to see that it was "flickering" using the
Laser
was far more than had been noted with the
LED. While the LED in the telescope was visibly dimmer
than the Laser, it
was clearly less "flickery" than the Laser: A quick listen
to the
test tone revealed that there
was, in fact, very significant scintillation of the Laser's
signal as
the test tone sounded
quite
raspy, as the following clips demonstrate:
Important note about the sound files found on this web
page:
Due to the MP3 audio compression,
finer
details of
the scintillation are lost, but the audio files "sound" to the
ear
pretty much
identical to the uncompressed PCM files to which they were
originally
recorded.
All of the audio clips were transmitted using the 8 inch
reflector
telescope and received using a receiver with the photodiode
mounted at
the focus of a poor-quality 7"x10" (17.8 cm x 25.4 cm) vinyl
"page
magnifier"-type Fresnel lens
- that is, an area of approximately 70 sq. in, or 452 sq. cm.
Unfortunately, the audio clip of the test tone from the Laser
experienced some clipping (overdriving) when the recording was
made -
but clipping occurred only on higher audio peaks. In both
clips,
some "clicking" can also be heard in the background (especially
on the
LED clip) and this was from the strobes of aircraft flying
slightly
above the optical signal path.
A more "real world" comparison may be heard in the clip
below.
This clip directly compares the "sound" of the Laser's signal
with that
of the LED. In this clip, the Laser is tested first, and
then the
LED is immediately installed to assure that both tests were done
with
the same atmospheric conditions.
This clip has been edited to reduce its length and improve
continuity: At the end of the clip, K7RJ's comments
(transmitted
via LED from the end of the path where the bulk of the recording
was
made)
were mixed in from a recording made at my end as received via
the
lightbeam link. During the entire
transmission (except during the 1kHz tone segment) a 4kHz
"pilot" tone
was transmitted along with the normal audio, but this has been
notched
out (except for the brief test segments) to make it more
"listenable" as the 4 kHz tone is really annoying.
Other
than the removal of the pilot tone, no other
filtering or amplitude adjustment was done, hence the presence
of the
120 Hz tone (and harmonics) from the city lights. The
rhythmic
clicking of the strobes of passing aircraft can also be heard in
various
parts of this recording.
The audio clip below consists of the following segments:
Transmitted via Laser:
4 kHz tone (0:00-0:06)
1 kHz tone (0:06-0:13)
Brief music clip (0:13-0:25)
Voice announcement of switching from the Laser to the
LED (0:13-0:35)
Transmitted via LED:
1kHz tone (0:35-0:46)
Voice announcement (0:46-0:52)
4 kHz tone (0:52-1:01)
Brief music clip (1:01-1:10)
Brief comments on audio quality (1:10-1:24)
Laser
and
LED
audio
comparison(MP3 audio file, 1:24,
987kB) Note that the use of short duration (<30
second or
10%)
music
clips is
considered to be acceptable fair use
under
current interpretations of
U.S. Copyright law. (Music: "Children" [Dream
Version] from
the album "Dreamland" by Robert Miles)
Figure 3:
Top: Waveforms of a portion of the 4 kHz test
signal
transmitted by the Laser. Top-middle: Close-up of a portion of the
scintillation
of the 4 kHz Laser-transmitted tone. This portion
has been
"zoomed in" in both the vertical (amplitude) and
horizontal (time) axes. Bottom-middle: Waveform of a portion of the 4
kHz test
signal transmitted by LED. Bottom: Close-up of a portion of the
scintillation of
the 4 kHz LED-transmitted tone. Note that the
rate-of-change of
amplitude is much slower than with the Laser as evidenced
by noting the
time scale along the bottom of the images. Note different time axes for all images. Click on an image for a larger version.
A more in-depth analysis of the scintillation:
The waveforms in Figure 3 offer close-up graphical
analysis of
4 kHz tones from the original uncompressed PCM recordings show
the true
nature of the scintillation. These waveforms have been
bandpass-filtered from 1 kHz to about 6 kHz to remove 120 Hz
energy
from the city lights and the segments from which the analysis
was taken
have been amplitude-normalized to 16 bits full-scale.
It should be noted that the nature of scintillation (depth
and rate,
for example) is strongly dependant on the current conditions
within the
air volume through which the light beam is being passed and
will vary
greatly over time!
Laser scintillation:
As can be seen from the top image of Figure 3 there is
significant scintillation that occurs at a very rapid rate with
a
close-up being seen in in the top-middle image. Note that
the
top-middle image has been "zoomed in" in terms of time to show
the
rapid rate-of-change and amplitude to view the depth of the
scintillation: The reference of this image is, like the
others,
based on a full-scale 16 bit sample. Analysis of the
original audio file reveals several things:
While the "primary" period of scintillation is
approximately 10
milliseconds (100Hz) but there is evidence that there are
harmonics of
this rate to at least 2.5 milliseconds (400 Hz) - but the
limited
temporal resolution of the test tone makes it difficult to
resolve
these faster rates.
Other strong scintillatory periods evident in the audio
sample
occur at approximate subharmonics of the "primary"
scintillatory rate,
such as 75 and 150 milliseconds.
The rate-of-change of amplitude during the scintillation
is quite
rapid: Amplitude changes of over 30 dB can occur in
just 20
milliseconds.
The overall depth of scintillation was noted to be over
40dB,
with frequent excursions to this lower amplitude. It
was noted
that this depth measurement was noise-limited owing to the
finite
signal-noise ratio of the recorded signal.
LED scintillation:
The bottom-middle image of Figure 3 shows a typical
example of
scintillation from the LED. Analysis of the original audio
file
shows several things:
The 10 millisecond "primary" scintillatory period observed
in the
Laser signal is pretty much nonexistent while the 20
millisecond
subharmonic is just noticeable.
150 and 300 millisecond periods seems to be dominant, with
strong
evidence of other periods in the 500 and 1000 millisecond
period.
The rate-of-change of amplitude is far slower:
Changes of
more than 10 dB did not usually occur over a shorter period
than about
60 milliseconds.
The overall depth of scintillation was noted to be about
25 dB
peak, but was more typically in the 15-18dB area.
Observations with a 1kHz tone:
In analyzing the 1 kHz tones from this test, it is more
difficult to
realize the apparent depth of the scintillation: On the
Laser,
depths of well over 30 dB are readily apparent, but due to
clipping on
the
original recording, the true depth of some of the faster fades
cannot
be accurately measured. On the LED, the noted
scintillation depth
was
more in line with that observed using the 4 kHz tone (about 22dB
peak)
because the changes were slower and were more easily captured at
the
lower frequency. Observed scintillation using the Luxeon and the
Fresnel Lens:
A final test was done using the Luxeon and Fresnel lens
combination for transmitting and the same Fresnel as before for
receiving. For this test, the LED current was reduced so
that
it was visually similar in brightness to that of the LED in the
telescope. The Fresnel lens has a larger aperture than the
8 inch
reflector telescope - about 117 sq. in. (759 sq. cm) - a bit
more
twice the area, so it was expected that lower scintillation
would
result. A typical sample of the scintillation on the 4 kHz
tone
may be seen in Figure 4.
Measuring using the 4 kHz tone, the peak scintillation was in
the
17-20dB area and the rate of change of amplitude was comparable
to that
observed when using the telescope and LED for
transmitting. A
clip of
this may be heard in the following recording:
Transmitted via LED with the Fresnel lens:
Voice announcement (0:00-0:02)
1kHz tone (0:02-0:06)
4 kHz tone (0:06-0:10)
Brief music clip (0:10-0:14)
Brief voice comment (0:14-0:16)
Luxeon
with
Fresnel lens(MP3 audio file, 0:16,
185kB)
Note
that
the
use
of
short
duration (<30 second or 10%) music
clips is
considered to be acceptable fair use
under
current interpretations of
U.S. Copyright law. (Music: X-Files theme by
Mark Snow, DJ
Dado remix)
As in the previous clip, the 4 kHz tone present through much of
the
recording has been notched out - except during the specific 4
kHz test
signal. Also present is the 120 Hz hum from urban
lighting.
Conclusions:
As expected, the coherent light experienced more scintillation
than the
noncoherent light and that the rate-of-change of amplitude of
the
coherent light was much faster (and of greater depth) than the
noncoherent light. In this test, both light sources were
collimated approximately equally and from the same size of
aperture. While much of the Laser's scintillation was due
to the
air turbulence, it is very likely that the severity of the
scintillation was increased due to wavefront cancellation
occurring due
to the differing velocities in the cells of air through which
the light
passed. Comment: No attempts were made to
"dodge" any
nulls in atmospheric transmissivity that might have been
occurring at
the precise
operating wavelength of the Laser.
It has occurred to us that the light being emitted by the
telescope is
probably not phase-coherent across the entire aperture - and
this
would, no
doubt, increase the likelihood of scintillation. It should
be
noted that achieving such phase coherence across such a large
area
would require extremely precise optics - something that the
average
experimenter would not likely be able to find or
afford. Keep in mind, however, that even if a coherent
wavefront
leaves the transmitted optics, it only takes a short distance of
travel
through the atmosphere before the phase coherence is lost,
anyway.
What is
significant is that, using just an ordinary high-brightness LED
operated at a few 10's of milliamps, it was possible to get
results
that
were significantly superior (in terms of amplitude stability) to
those
obtained when using the Laser.
It also occurred to us that not every experimenter has a large
reflector telescope that can be dragged around - and if they
did, the
bulk, weight, and fragility of this piece of equipment would
greatly
limit exactly where it might be taken. While the
telescope has extremely good optics, it has also been shown that
very
good results can be obtained by using an inexpensive plastic
Fresnel
lens. While this lens is not as efficient a collimator as
the
telescope, one can overcome the Fresnel's inefficiencies by
brute
force, using an extremely high-output LED such as the Luxeon III
- both
techniques that quite practical to the experimenter.
Other experimentation:
Comparison of a scintillation effects between a
large-aperture
noncoherent light source and a standard (unmodified) Laser
pointer:
Figure 4: Typical scintillation of a 4 kHz tone transmitted from
a 107sq in
(690 sq cm) Fresnel lens using a high power
LED. Click on the image for a larger version.
After our first tests (on 8/14/07) we had the opportunity to do
a direct
comparison between
a standard red Laser pointer and a high power LED using a 70 sq
in. (450 sq. cm)
Fresnel lens. To be sure, this is an extreme comparison,
as the
uncollimated beam from the Laser pointer represents a worst-case
scenario. The recordings of the tones were made within
minutes of
each other over the 14.91 mile path:
Again, it should be noted that this is an extreme
example of
the effects of scintillation.
In the first half of this recording can be heard the 1 kHz tone
being
transmitted via the collimated LED: This tone is slightly
distorted by the presence of mild scintillation, but it is
largely
intact. The 1 kHz tone in the second half of this
recording,
however, has
significant spectral spreading caused by scintillation:
The
effect of scintillation is, for all practical purposes, a random
noise
source that is amplitude-modulating the tone. The
scintillation
rate is fast enough that it is well within the audible range,
causing a
very obvious "roughness" in the received tone.
Is should be noted that in the case of the Laser pointer, its
light
needs to travel only fraction of the distance of the total path
(1 or 2
kilometers) before its
normal divergence causes the beam size to exceed that of the
beam size
emitted by the telescope,
so much of the added distortion of the Laser pointer's signal is
from
its traveling
through only that first portion of the optical path.
Vulnerability of an uncollimated Laser to path anomalies:
While we were conducting the above experiment, it happened that
the
sprinklers in the adjacent cemetery turned on. While it
was first
feared that people and equipment were going to get wet, it soon
became
clear that they
were safe - at least for the moment - and that the only effects
were
that the spray of water was going to cut across the optical
path.
Here is an recording (edited for time) demonstrating the effects
of the
sprinkler's cutting across the optical path:
Transmitted via Laser Pointer:
Blow-by-blow description of the sprinkler's path (0:00-0:56)
Sprinkler cuts across Laser's path (0:56-1:20)
More commentary via Laser (1:20-1:30)
LED communications through sprinkler path and
commentary (1:30-2:48)
Laser
pointer
and
LED
through
sprinkler
path (MP3 audio file, 2:48,
1.12 Meg; This is a stereo recording
with Left channel
containing audio being transmitted to the
far end and
the right channel
being the audio received from the far end.)
Comment: It should be mentioned that while the voice
being
transmitted via Laser was slightly overmodulating the PWM
circuit, much
of the "roughness" in the voice heard throughout the recording
is a
result of distortion caused by
spectral spreading of the audio frequencies by the
scintillation.
Because the sprinkler's path was very near the Laser, the
droplet size
in the sprinkler was a significant portion of the diameter of
the beam
from the Laser pointer - a property that explains why the
disruption
was so severe. With the collimated beam from the LED,
however,
there was no obvious disruption in the path: The only
effect
noted was acoustic feedback resulting from a reduction of
transmit/receive isolation.
One interesting phenomenon that has yet to be explained occurs
at about
2:22 in the recording: In the background one can hear what
sounds
like a locomotive horn being sounded. This same sound had
been
noticed in previous testing and its source is unknown:
Recordings
were made of what was being transmitted and this is not
a sound that was picked up acoustically by an open microphone at
either
end! The current explanation is that, somewhere along the
path,
there was a volume of air that was being influenced by the sound
of a
train horn via compression and that it was this compression of
sound
waves that was "modulating" the refractive index of the air
volume
along the path. Other possible explanations include the
presence
of a light source (either visible or infrared) somewhere along
the path
that was modulated in this manner: Determining the source
of this
sound would be interesting. (This same sound may
also
be present in the "Modulating Tungsten" recording, below at a
time
index of 0:18 - a sound initially attributed to the mechanical
vibration of the filament and a recording that was,
coincidentally,
made at about the same time of day.)
"Looking" at scintillation:
Figure 5: A video showing the scintillation of
a Laser
pointer and collimated LED at a distance of 15 miles (24
km)
(Narration by Chris, VK3AML)
Another experiment that was done on 8/14 involved looking at the
Laser
pointer
and LED through an 8" reflector telescope. On this
occasion, I
attached a video camera to the telescope and then defocused the
optics
to spread out the beam from a point source to a much larger
spot.
Because this telescope uses a secondary mirror that partially
blocks
the optical path, there is a hole in the resulting image caused
by that
mirror.
The first half of this video clip shows the light from the Laser
pointer, while the second half shows the light from the
collimated
LED. As can be seen from the clip, the effects of the
scintillation look quite different: The Laser's light is
quite
"speckly" with adjacent frames looking very different from each
other. The LED's light looks a bit "smoother" by
comparison -
somewhat akin to looking at a streetlight through blowing fog
(an
affect that seems to be moving from right to left in the video)
and
there appears to be at least some similarity between adjacent
frames.
Interestingly, the video camera would not resolve the Laser
light
with good color saturation: During this test, the camera
was
adjusted and a fixed white balance setting was selected - and
even when
severely underexposed, the saturation did not improve. The
color
fidelity of the LED was much better with the same settings used
for the
Laser.
It should be noted that the apparent spot size difference
between the
Laser and
LED testing was a result of the telescope having been adjusted
between
the tests and not being returned precisely to the same settings,
and
the slight "jitter" in the image (most notable during
the portion of the video with the LED) was solely a result of a
stiff
breeze
coming up and causing the telescope to "bounce" slightly -
something
that is hard to avoid on an image with a resolution power
capable of
differentiating objects just two feet apart at a distance of 15
miles!
In the future, it would be worth adding a third
comparison:
Collimated Laser light. To do this, however, we'll have to
borrow
another
reflector telescope...
Using a normal LED with minimal optics:
During the 4/25 test, Ron connected a standard red LED - mounted
in a
small flashlight reflector - to his PWM Laser modulator just to
see if
it could be detected, or if I could see it with the
telescope:
Because I could see their individual LED flashlights, it was
hoped that
the
LED would be powerful enough to be detectable: It
wasn't.
This was surprising, actually, as I expected that something
would be detectable by ear. This test was thrown together
at the
very last minute and it probably failed owing to the fact that
the
reflector chosen (a cheap flashlight) was not well-suited for
focusing
the LED that Ron chose. If the LED and reflector had been
better-matched, I have no doubt that something would
have been
detected.
According to the initial analysis of the audio file
using narrowband techniques, it is possible that a signal may
have been detected - but it was more 90dB below the peak audio
level
received from the Luxeon and Fresnel lens.
Using the Luxeon emitter with its secondary lens:
Another experiment conducted on 4/25 was one in which I removed
the
Luxeon emitter (with
its secondary lens) from the Fresnel lens enclosure. Ron
reported
that with binoculars, the 3 watt Luxeon LED (with its secondary
lens)
was just visible and he could
hear the "peaks" of the tone via speaker. Further analysis
of the
recording
indicate that removal of the LED from the Fresnel reduced their
received optical power by 55-60dB on average with scintillatory
peaks
at higher levels.
Here is a sample of the signal - but
turn your volume down for the first part :
Luxeon
with
secondary
lens, but no Fresnel(MP3 audio file, 18
seconds, 217kB)
The
first
few
seconds
of this file are with the LED installed in the
Fresnel mount, but after 6 seconds, what tone is heard is
from the
Luexeon and secondary lens, only.
Yelling at our gear:
After we did all of the experimentation with the LEDs and Laser,
we
were wondering what else to do before we tore down our
gear. Ron,
out of curiosity, decided to shine a portable 1 Million
Candlepower
spotlight at me: As expected, I could easily hear the
thermal
roar of the tungsten filament as he did so - but I noticed
something
else: A "bong" has he
was handling the spotlight - apparent microphonics of the
filament, as
the following audio file demonstrates:
Modulating
tungsten(MP3
audio file, 1:46, 1252kB) In this stereo
file, I am heard
(via optical link at Gordon and Ron's location) on the left
channel while the right channel carries the
audio from
my optical receiver. It is best to use headphones
when
listening to this file. Minor editing and filtering
as been done
on this file to reduce its length and to make it more
listenable.
Or, for an shorter version:
Ron
screaming
at a
spotlight(MP3 audio file, 0:13,
213kB)
The
first
part
of
this
audio file is what was received while the second
part has noise reduction and pre-emphasis applied in an
attempt to
improve intelligibility. (It didn't help...)
Figure 6:
Top: The method used to modulate the
telescope.
Bottom: Waveform of the Kennecott
Strobe. Three
strobe
pulses (negative-going spikes) are evident. Click on either image for a larger version
Not to be outdone, I decided to try a similar thing, so I
installed the
LED and began shouting at various parts of the telescope's
anatomy - see the top image in Figure 5.
After a
few experimental shouts, we determined that the
star diagonal seemed to be the most sensitive part, so I
screamed at
that:
Clint
screaming
at
a
telescope(MP3 audio file, 0:17,
269kB)
As
with
the
previous
file, the first part is unprocessed while the
second part uses noise reduction to help with
intelligibility. (Again,
it
didn't
help
much...)
Shortly after this (and with hoarse throats from the screaming)
we
decided that it was getting late (it was past midnight) so we
packed
our gear up and headed home.
Pointing the receiver elsewhere:
From where Ron and Gordon set up, they could see the very tall (1215
ft,
370
meter)smokestack
of
the
Kennecott
smelter to the west of
their location. Because of its height, it is well-marked
with a
set of strobe lights to provide warning to aircraft.
Being curious, they pointed the optical receiver at the
smokestack and
from the sound of it, they could hear what sounded like multiple
flashes. Later examination of the audio file bore this
out, as
seen in the middle picture of Figure 6.
Kennecott
Strobe(MP3 audio file, 0:35,
482kB)
The "clicks" of
the
strobe are very apparent - as is the harmonic-rich 120 Hz
hum from
urban lighting.
As can be seen from the waveform, there are at least three
flashes. It is also apparent that the combination of
optical
receiver and digital recorder inverts the polarity of the
received
audio, so the initial impulses from the flashes are negative
with a little bit of overshoot on the return. Also
apparent in
the image is the presence of 120Hz energy (from city lights) and
harmonics.
As mentioned before, we often heard the "clicks" of aircrafts'
strobes
as they flew by: Even though these were off-axis, their
strobes
were intense enough to be easily detectable. In addition
to the
strobing of aircraft, I could also hear a nearly constant "tick"
in the
background - but I never spotted the source of this noise.
More may be added to this page soon - check back again.
If you have any questions or comments on the equipment
and/or methods
used, feel
free to drop me
an email.