PSK Project
Josh Ancel
Don Schlangle
CSIS 161
3/19/01
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
[i]PSK or Phase Shift Keying is a peer to peer file
or text program, based on the idea of
transmitting individual characters through a series of beeps. It uses a type of
Morse alphabet to transmit about 50 wpm or in a baud rate of 31.25 on a band
with of 31Hz. This is an ingenious program that was created by Peter
Martinez who thought of using a Phase
Shift instead of the traditional Frequency Shift Keying or FSK. The PSK31 program
can be obtained from www.imiwebs.com/winpskse.
The size of the download is 997kb. The specifications for this program are
Windows 95,98, or NT 4.0 running on at least a 133MHz Pentium, or equivalent.
It says that it has had a limited amount of runtime on Windows 2000 and has
worked so far. A VGA screen resolution of at least 800 X 600. The program takes
up about 1.93mb and uses about 6mb of ram. The transmitting computer of course
must have a speaker and the receiving computer a microphone. Or both if they
are transmitting and receiving.
The
program was installed on two Gateway laptops provided by the school. The process
was as followed. You must go to this
site www.imiwebs.com/winpskse and
download the install file. (See Figure
1.1)
(Figure 1.1 PSK Download Instructions)
Run the self
extracting install file after you chosen what directory you would like the file
downloaded to. Once you run the program you must select the location on your
hard disk where you would like to install the program. It has a default setting
so you shouldn’t have to choose some where else. (See Figure 1.2) 
Once you have waited a hole 20 seconds for the files
to install it will then ask you where you would like to create your shortcut. (See Figure 1.3)
(Figure 1.3
The directory on your Start Menu
where the
shortcut will be created.)
After you choose the folder then the program will inform you that all the files were installed correctly. Then it will open a release note file with some pertinent information. It is recommended that you read this before going any further in the project. When finished reading the file you are now ready to start the program.
Now go to the
Start Menu and run the program. Once you have ran the program on one computer
you must make sure you are running it on the other. Now you must choose the frequency
that you will be transmitting on or TX as it appears in the program. You must
also choose the mode either BPSK or QPSK. (See
Figure1.4) If you are transmitting
as well as receiving then you should set the receiving frequency to the same as
the transmitting frequency of the other computer and vises a versa. The
transmitting frequency of one computer should not be the same as another. (See Figure 1.4) This is so they do
not conflict and create error. Once you have set a frequency from 200 to 35000
it will not transmit or receive anything outside these frequency.
(Figure 1.4 Labeling of the specified
buttons.)
PSK has its
good thing and its bad things like for one BPSK does not do upper case letters
at all. Actually it I could never even get it to transmit a solid signal at all.
But here is what the wave form looks like.
(Figure 1.5) 
You see on the other hand you have the QPSK mode which I did
not have any problems with until people cam in the room.(Figure1.6) 
Which brings me to my next point. The program works only as long as it is not receiving any interference from other sound waves. Which is virtually impossible considering that there is always some type of noise weather it be the furnis or even the computers themselves. So this program works well in theory but in reality its is just a toy that cannot have much of a real purpose.