Pocsag Mobilecomm

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THE POCSAG PAGING PROTOCOL

Overview
The POCSAG name comes from the UK, and
stands for: Post Office Code Standardization
Advisory Group which at one time controlled all
radio data telecommunications in Britain. POCSAG is a
transmission protocol used to transmit one-way messages to "pagers'.
are radio small receivers that are
activated when a properly message encoded is Pagers
transmitted them over aradio channel.
to
The POCSAG protocol was a major
improvementover previous tone-based paging
protocols, allowing for much longer pager
system. battery life and many more subscribers per
There are three standard POCSAG data rates: 512, 1200, or
longest communication range, while 1200 and 2400 allow for 2400 bps. 512bps has the
per second.
more pages to be transmitted
POCSAGpages are transmitted in a batch structure, with a long
of the message to allowpagers to periodically pre-amble at the beginning
asynchronously
page. Once they detect the preamble, they sync-up to the wake up, and listen for a
the embedded synch bits. Pagers analyze PCSAG message by detecting
sequential batches
contains an address code word frame with its own cap code. of pages to see if any batch
Modulation
The typical over-the-air modulation used is RF
Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) with a
t4500Hz shift on the RF carrier. The high frequency
represents adigital 0and the low
frequency a digital 1. Often single transmission channels
than one of the rates. contain blocks of data at more
CAP Codes
"CapCode" stands for Channel Access
Protocol code, which is the unique ID code
to a particular pager. assigned
When a pager detects its own cap code within a
user with abeep, tone, or vibration. And if it POCSAG address frame. it will alert the
has display
a text message it it is ancapability, will display a number
if it is a numeric pager, or it
display
cap codes are 21 bits long, allowing for up
The cap code is comprised of 18 to 2097152 unique alpha-numeric pager.
cap codes per radioPOCSAG
address bitsand 3 frame location bits. The frame channel.
location
bits are the least-significant bits, and the address bits are the most-significant bits of the cap
code.

The POCSAG Transmission Format


APOCSAGtransmission consists of a 576 bit preamble and one or more batches of code
words. Each batch contains:
A 32-bit frame synchronization code (FSC) that marks the start of a code word batch
Eight address frames of two 32-bit addresses or idle code words each.
The sync and code words are transmitted Most Significant Bit first, LSB last.

The Preamble
The preamble consists of 576 bits of alternating 1-0 bits transmitted. To save power, most
paging receivers and pagers put themselves to sleep, drawing very little power, and
periodically wake-upto listen on the radio channel for a POCSAG preamble.
When a receiver detects the presence of preamble, to stays awake, and synchronizes its
receiver to the bit-rate of the preamble. The alternating 1-0 pattern of the preamble identifies
the data-rate of the upcoming paging batches. Allbatches after the preamble are sent at the
same data rate of either 512, 1200, or 2400 bits per second.
POCSAG Batches
APOCSAG starts with aframe synchronizationcode (FSC)followed by 8frames. Each of
the 8 frames has two code words in it. Up to 16 address code words may be sent per batch.
For proper batch structure, each frame has two address code words,two idle code words, or
two message code words.

Preamble Batch #1 Batch #2 Additional Batches


Preamble F 8 Frames 8 Frammes
576 Bits S 16 Codewords 16 Codewords
10101010... C 23 5 6 7

Erame Svnchronization Code Structure


The frame synchronization code (FSC) is reserved word that is used to identify the
beginning of each batch. The FS code word has 32 bits:

Code Words
01111100110100100001010111011000
Within a batch, there are two types of code words; an
code word. Each contains 32 bits of address code word and a message
information.
Address Code Word Format
2 thru 19 20 21 22 thru 31 32

Address Bits Function


Bits
BCH Check P
i Bits
Even parity Bit

Message Code Word Format


2 thru 21 22 thru 31 32

BCH Check P
1 Message Bits Bits

Even parity Bit

Address Code Word Structure


Thestructure of an address code word is shown above. The first bit of an address code
work is always a 0. Bits 2 through 19 contain the address bits. The complete cap code is
comprised of 18 address bits embedded in bits 2-19 and 3 bits derived from the frame
location within the batch, for a total of 21 bits, for 2,097,152 unique cap codes.
Each POCSAG code word is capatble of providing address information for four different
paging "sources' (Source Address 1through Source Address 4). These source addresses
are determined by combinations of the values of the source identifier bits 20 and 21.
sometimes called the Function Bits. Bits 22 through 31 are the BCH parity check bits, and
bit 32 is the even parity bit.
The location of the frame within the batch is used to identify additional pager address bits.
Pre-coded into the cap code are three bits which designate the frame location within the
batch that the pager's address is received.
Most pagers and POCSAG receivers power down their receiver circuitry when
that are not intended for their specific cap code's designated frame, during frames
which greatly
extends
pager battery life.
The two function bits are used to indicate the type of
convention for this bits is: message that was sent. The standard
Bit 20 Bit 21
0
Function
o0
1
1
1

Parity Check Bits


POCSAGuses a BCH Error Correcting Code (ECC) to detect and correct for bit errors.
BCH provides a 6 bit hamming distance between allvalid code words. With BCH, one or two
bit errors can be corrected by the receiver. The BCH generating polynomial for (31,21) BOCH
code is x10 + ° + x8 + x® + xÑ + x° + 1.
The BCH code used provides a 6 bit hamming distance between code words. This makes
one or two bit error correction possible.
Optional Dual-Erame Operation
Two different frames can be selected on an ADVISOR pager. Each frame has two
corresponding codes which provide a total of 16 addresses (sources) for POCSAG pagers.
Selecting this option reduces battery life by about 30% in batch (synchronous) mode. The
frame of codes A and Bmust be less than the frame of codes C and D. (The frame is the
remainder of the address divided by 8).
Qptional Alternate Frame Synchronization Qode Words
The POCSAG standard reserved code words from 2,000,000 to 2,097,151. These reserved
code words can be used to expand system capacity,as long as the paging system supports
them. These reserved code words are cailed the Alternate Frame Synchronization (AFS)
codes.
Code Capacity
The combination of the code plug's three pre-coded frame location bits and the address
code word's 18address bits provides over two million different assignable codes. In this
combination, the frame location bits are the least-significant bits, and the ad dress bits are
the most-significant bits.
Message Code Word Structure
Amessage sent to a pager consists of one address code word located in the proper frame
within the batch and between 0andn of the imnediately following code words which contain
the message text. The message ends when either an address code word is received or an
idle code word is received. A long message may be spread over two or more 17 code word
batches.

Amessage code word always starts with a 1in bit 1and always follows directly after the
address. Each message code word replaces an address code word in the batch.
ldle Code Word Structure
The idle code word is a reserved code word used to fill a frame that does not have either a
message code word or an address code word. If a frame contains only an address, such as
when a tone-only pager is alerted, an idle code word completes the 64-bit frame. The idle
code word comprises the 32 hex value of Ox7A89C197:

01111010100010011100000110010111
Numeric Messages
bits 30-11
BCD numeric encoding packs 4 bit BCD symbols 5 to a message code word into
significant) of a BCD
The most significant nibble (bits 30,29,28,27) is the leftmost (or most
coded message.
encoded as follows:
Values beyond 9 in each nibble (i.e. OxA through 0xF) are
OxA Reserved (possibly used for address extension)
OxB Character U (urgency)
OxC" Space (blank)
OxD "", Hyphen (or dash)
OxE ")", Left bracket
OxF "", Right bracket
the code word.
BCD messages are space padded with trailing 0xC's to fill
as shown in this
POCSAGreceivers output ASCIlcharacters representing the numeric digits
table:
Numeric ASCII ASCII Numeric ASCII ASCII
Code Digit Code
Digit
Ox0 Ox30 Ox8 8 0x38

Ox1 Ox31 Ox9 Ox39

0x2 2 Ox32 OxA Ox2A

0x3 3 Ox33 OxB U Ox55

Ox4 4 Ox34 OxC space 0x20

Ox5 5 Ox35 OxD Ox2D

Ox6 6 0x36 OxE ) Ox29

0x7 7 0x37 Ox28

Alphanumeric Messages
Alphanumeric messages are comprised of a sequence of numbers and letters,using 7-bit
ASCIlcharacters. Characters are encoded in 7 bit ASCIlformat and assembled into the 20
bit message bits area of amessage code word (bits 30-11). Three seven bit ASCII
characters use 21 bits so if the message is 3 or more ASICC characters long, the first 20
bits of an ASCIl message are in the first code word, the next 20 bits of a alphanumeric
message are transmitted in the next code word, and so on. ASCIlcharacters are placed
from left to right (MSB to LSB). The LSb of an ASCIl character is transmitted first.
The 7-bit ASCIlcode is used for alpha-numeric messages. There are 20 bits in each
codeword for message data, however, in this format each character is 7 bits. Characters are
split between codewords and the last codeword is filled with
as end of message,end of text, or null. Null is the only unprintable characters such
character which can be incomplete.
message is 40 characters. However,.
The maximum length for a standard alpha-numericallow up to 80 characters.
there are provisions for longer messages which
1 1
1 1
1
ASCII 1 1
1

b4 b3 b2 b1
NUL DLE SP
SOH DC 1 A
1
STX DC 2 B R
1
ETX DC # 3
1
EOT DC
1 ENQ NAK % 5
1 f
ACK SYN & 6 F
1
1 BEL ETB 7 G
1
BS CAN 8 H X
1
1 1 HT EM
LF SUB J
1
VT ESC K k
1 1
FF FS L
1 1
1 1 CR GS M m
1
1 1 SO RS
1 1 SI US DEL

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