Mobile radio data transmission—Coding for error control

Error patterns recorded during mobile radio data transmission experiments in London have been used to assess what error control strategies are required to achieve reliable data communication. The performance of error detecting and correcting codes has been investigated and the effects of varying code parameters explored. Results are given for transmission at 462 MHz using data rates of 1200 b/s and 4800 b/s, and the advantages of using a high data rate are considered. Bit interleaving is shown to be a useful way of dispersing bursts of errors, greatly improving the performance of an error correcting code. Fairly simple coding techniques can give a performance which is adequate for many applications, and a high performance is readily possible.