Coded Phy Advertising Reception.

[froloffw7]

Hello,

Does this BLE scanner have the capability to receive Coded PHY advertising? I rebuild your project for the CC2652P based E72-2G4M20S1E module from EBYTE. The only changes, I made were:

• switched RF Control Pins to DIO05/DIO06, according to the module schematic
• decreased UART speed t to 1000000 baud
• optionally activate UART hardware flow control.

Unfortunately, the scanner is only able to receive and display 1M PHY advertising and never Coded PHY. I have a couple of devices transmitting advertising in Coded PHY mode and can easily find them with nRF Connect scanner from Nordic.

Command line I use to run scanner: ./sniff_receiver.py -le

Does it supposedly continue to receive and display 1M PHY data despite the -le flags?

Thank you in advance.

[sultanqasim]

Your command ./sniff_receiver.py -le looks correct for receiving advertisements on the coded PHY. With that command, it should only receive advertisements (on primary advertising channels) using the long range coded PHY, not the 1M PHY. Those advertisements will contain an AuxPtr that can point to an auxiliary advertisement on any channel and PHY. For example, I just tried it right now with my phone putting out coded advertisements, with auxiliary advertisements on the 2M PHY, and it worked fine.

Timestamp: 12.866209    Length: 9       RSSI: -59       Channel: 37     PHY: Coded (S=2)
Ad Type: ADV_EXT_IND
ChSel: 0 TxAdd: 1 RxAdd: 0 Ad Length: 7
AuxPtr Chan: 8 PHY: 2M Delay: 9990 us
AdvMode: Connectable
AdvDataInfo: A1 02
47 07 46 18 A1 02 08 4D 21
G     F              M  !

Timestamp: 12.876234    Length: 45      RSSI: -65       Channel: 8      PHY: 2M
Ad Type: AUX_ADV_IND
ChSel: 0 TxAdd: 1 RxAdd: 0 Ad Length: 43
AdvMode: Connectable
AdvA: 5B:D8:25:52:89:4C (RPA) AdvDataInfo: A1 02
47 2B 49 09 4C 89 52 25 D8 5B A1 02 02 01 02 08 09 50 69 78 65 6C 20 38 02 0A F9 11 07 42 00 74 A9 FF 52 10 9B 33 49 35 9B 00 04 68 EF
G  +  I     L     R  %     [                       P  i  x  e  l     8                 B     t        R        3  I  5           h   

I'm not sure why your firmware isn't correctly receiving on the long range coded PHY. I've noticed that sometimes cmd_chan_aa_phy at the start of running the sniffer can fail, though just launching sniff_receiver.py again with the same options should fix it. If that doesn't fix it, you'd need to debug why the cmd_chan_aa_phy (to switch to the coded PHY) is failing.

[froloffw7]

Thank you for the quick response.

I believe there is some problem with the UART programming of my module. I'll try to investigate more deeply.

This is definitely not a hardware problem, as I'm using BSL for board reprogramming.

In the meantime, I did some tests by forcibly assigning phy = PHY_CODED_S8; at the _RadioWrapperrecvFrames() function entry. But I didn't receive any output from the module.

Update: Fixed the UART issue. Scanner now selects operation mode from the Python script.

Further testing revealed the scanner receives LE Coded extended advertising simulated by nRF Connect, but not another device detectable by nRF Connect. I'll investigate further and keep you updated. Thanks!

[froloffw7]

PS. I successfully rebuild the project with:

• simplelink_cc13xx_cc26xx_sdk_7_40_00_77
• sysconfig_1.19.0
• arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.Rel1

with only minor changes related to switch from UART to UART2 TI driver.

[froloffw7]

Dear Sultan Qasim Khan,

Thank you for this fantastic project. It's been a valuable tool in diagnosing malfunctions during BLE development.

While working with it, I made some minor changes that I believe could also be helpful.

Changes:

• add AUX_CONNECT_RSP
• packet hex dump The output now looks like:

  
  Timestamp: 12.500241    Length: 9       RSSI: -61       Channel: 37     PHY: Coded (S=8)
  Ad Type: ADV_EXT_IND
  ChSel: 0 TxAdd: 0 RxAdd: 0 Ad Length: 7
  AuxPtr Chan: 3 PHY: Coded Delay: 6480 us
  AdvMode: Connectable
  AdvDataInfo: 01 00
  00000000  07 07 46 18 01 00 03 d8  40                       |..F.....@       |
  00000009

Timestamp: 12.506750 Length: 257 RSSI: -73 Channel: 3 PHY: Coded (S=8) Ad Type: AUX_ADV_IND ChSel: 0 TxAdd: 0 RxAdd: 0 Ad Length: 255 AdvMode: Connectable AdvA: 66:55:44:33:22:11 (Public) AdvDataInfo: 01 00 00000000 07 ff 49 09 11 22 33 44 55 66 01 00 02 01 06 1a |..I.."3DUf......| 00000010 ff 4c 00 02 15 fd a5 06 93 a4 e2 4f b1 af cf c6 |.L.........O....| 00000020 eb 07 64 78 25 27 74 6b ed c5 00 00 00 00 00 00 |..dx%'tk........| 00000030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................| * 00000100 00 |. | 00000101

Timestamp: 12.523941 Length: 36 RSSI: -61 Channel: 3 PHY: Coded (S=8) Ad Type: AUX_CONNECT_REQ ChSel: 0 TxAdd: 1 RxAdd: 0 Ad Length: 34 InitA: 79:12:20:DA:A3:5C (RPA) AdvA: 66:55:44:33:22:11 (Public) AA: 0x66D796F2 CRCInit: 0xA54BD0 WinSize: 1 WinOffset: 12 Interval: 36 Latency: 0 Timeout: 500 Hop: 6 SCA: 5 Channel Map: FF FF FF FF 1F (all channels) 00000000 45 22 5c a3 da 20 12 79 11 22 33 44 55 66 f2 96 |E".. .y."3DUf..| 00000010 d7 66 d0 4b a5 01 0c 00 24 00 00 00 f4 01 ff ff |.f.K....$.......| 00000020 ff ff 1f a6 |.... | 00000024

Timestamp: 12.527042 Length: 16 RSSI: -73 Channel: 3 PHY: Coded (S=8) Ad Type: AUX_CONNECT_RSP ChSel: 0 TxAdd: 0 RxAdd: 1 Ad Length: 14 AdvMode: Non-connectable, non-scannable AdvA: 66:55:44:33:22:11 (Public) TargetA: 79:12:20:DA:A3:5C (RPA) 00000000 88 0e 0d 03 11 22 33 44 55 66 5c a3 da 20 12 79 |....."3DUf.. .y| 00000010

If you'd be interested, I'd be happy to share these changes. Please let me know the preferred method for contribution, such as a pull request (PR) or a diff.

This issue could be closed now.

[sultanqasim]

Thank you for your work. Please submit two separate PRs for the two features. Receipt and proper handling of AUX_CONNECT_REQ is something that was on my TODO list, so thanks again!