JP2626504B2 - Radio selective call receiver and radio frequency channel search method thereof - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a radio paging receiver, and more particularly to a radio paging receiver used for a plurality of radio paging systems having different radio frequencies.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A radio selective call receiver used in a plurality of radio selective call services using different radio frequency channels searches for a radio frequency band including the radio frequency channels and selectively receives the radio frequency channels. It is necessary to determine for each sequentially received channel whether or not it is a target radio frequency channel for which the own receiver can receive service. For this reason, each radio frequency channel contains system information for identifying the radio selective calling system, and the receiver compares the system information included in the sequentially received channels and the system information held by the own receiver. Compare and match, determine the target channel, fix the local frequency, continue receiving the channel, identify selected call number information, proceed to receive display message, etc., if not match, change local frequency Then, it is switched to the next-order radio frequency channel. In this case, the time for receiving the minimum unit of the transmission signal requires several 100 ms per channel.

[0003]

In the conventional radio selective calling receiver, when a conventional radio frequency channel is searched, a channel that is not transmitted (not used) or a reception electric field strength is extremely weak, and the radio paging receiver cannot be used. Since the reception state is maintained for a channel that is not in a possible state, the search time is long, and for example, the time for searching for 16 radio frequency channels reaches several seconds. Therefore, the receiver enters the battery saving state late, which shortens the battery life. Also, the longer the time to search all the radio frequency channels, the higher the probability that the receiver will not be able to receive a call to the radio selective calling receiver. There was a problem that becomes high.

[0004] It is an object of the present invention to provide a radio paging receiver and radio selection which can significantly reduce the time to search for a plurality of radio frequency channels, and thus the time to determine the desired radio frequency channel to continue receiving. A method of searching for a radio frequency channel in a paging receiver.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A radio selective calling receiver according to the present invention controls an electric field detection means for detecting a received electric field strength of a radio frequency channel, and controls a search of the radio frequency channel to determine a target reception channel. A receiving channel control unit that switches the radio frequency channel to be received immediately to the next radio frequency channel when the received electric field intensity is equal to or less than a certain value, and the electric field intensity exceeds the certain value. If the system information does not match, an inquiry is made. If the system information does not match, the next radio frequency channel is switched. If the system information matches, the radio frequency channel being received is determined as the target reception channel.

[0006] The above-mentioned receiver also matches the information about the received electric field of the radio frequency channel with the system information.
Having storage means for storing information about the mismatch together;
The information is used for re-designating the order of the search of the reception channel in the subsequent search cycle.

In another aspect of the present invention, a method of searching for a radio frequency channel in a radio selective calling receiver is to set an arbitrary radio frequency channel as a reception channel, detect a reception field strength, and keep the reception field strength constant. If the received signal strength does not exceed the value, the setting of the receiving channel is immediately switched to the next radio frequency channel.If the received field strength exceeds a certain value, the system information included in the receiving channel is compared with the system information held by the receiver. If the system information does not match, the setting of the receiving channel is switched to the next radio frequency channel, and if the system information matches, the receiving radio frequency channel is determined as the target radio frequency channel to continue receiving.

In the above-described search method, information relating to the received electric field of each radio frequency channel is stored, and information relating to the coincidence / mismatch of the system information of each radio frequency channel is also stored. Re-order the search of the radio frequency channel in the subsequent search cycle.

[0009]

When a plurality of radio frequency channels including system information and selective call information are sequentially switched to search for a target radio frequency channel, selection including system information, selective call number information, message information, etc. is performed for each channel. Instead of receiving the paging signal continuously, first detect the reception field strength of the reception channel, and if the level is below a certain level, immediately switch to the next channel and start when the reception field strength exceeds the certain level. The comparison result of the system information is checked, and if they do not match, the channel is switched to the next channel.

If the target channel is not determined even though the search for all the channels has been completed in the first search cycle, the process proceeds to the second and subsequent search cycles. In this case, if the information on the received electric field for each channel in each search cycle and the match / mismatch of the system information are stored, the order of the search of the radio frequency channels in the next search cycle, that is, the order of the switching can be re-designated. Can be.

[0011]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a radio selective calling receiver according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The radio selective calling receiver of FIG. 1 is capable of receiving selective calling signals transmitted by a plurality of radio selective calling systems through different radio frequency channels, respectively, and includes an antenna 101, a radio unit 102, a demodulation unit 103, a decoder unit 105, Notification unit 106, display control unit 107, display unit 108, system information comparison unit 10
4, electric field detecting section 109, local frequency generating section 110,
It has a reception channel control unit 111.

An antenna 101 and a radio section 102 selectively receive a radio frequency channel corresponding to a local frequency transmitted from a local frequency generation section 110 controlled by a reception channel control section 111, and are demodulated into a selective call signal by a demodulation section 103. Waveform shaped, converted to digital signal,
The data is sent to the decoder unit 105 and decoded.

[0014] The decoded selective call signal includes system information for identifying a plurality of radio selective call systems, selective call number information assigned to the radio selective call receiver, and display on display section 108 of the receiver. Display information to be included.

An electric field detecting section 109 detects a received electric field strength of a radio frequency channel received by the antenna 101 and the radio section 102 and sends it to a receiving channel control section 111.
Receiving channel control section 111 compares the received electric field strength with a predetermined reference value. If the received electric field strength exceeds the reference value, the system information comparing unit 104 determines whether or not the decoded system information matches the system information held by the receiver in advance, and indicates a match or a mismatch. The signal is sent to decoder section 105 and reception channel control section 111.

If the system information matches, the local frequency is fixed by the receiving channel control unit 111, and the decoder unit 105 determines whether the demodulated selective call number matches the selective call number held by the receiver in advance. Is determined, and if they match, the decoder unit 105 drives the notification unit 106 and simultaneously displays the demodulated display information on the display control unit 10.
7 and display information is displayed on the display unit 108.

Next, a search operation of the radio selective call receiver of FIG. 1 which waits for a selective call to its own device will be described with reference to FIG. The radio selective call channel that can be received now is No. No. 1 to No. It is assumed that there are 16 channels up to 16 and It is assumed that the search is performed in the order of numbers from 1.

When the receiver is switched on by the carrier, the reception channel control section 111 sends the channel number to the local frequency generation section 110. 1 is instructed to transmit the local frequency corresponding to No. 1, and the receiving channel is set to No. 1. It is set to 1 (step 201). The electric field detection unit 109 connected to the radio unit 102 detects the received electric field strength (step 20).
2), the reception channel control section 111 compares whether or not the received electric field strength is higher than a reference value (step 20).
3).

If the received electric field strength does not exceed the reference value, the reception channel control section 111
o. It is checked whether or not it is set to 16 (step 20).
6), No. If it is not set to 16, the reception channel control unit 111 immediately instructs the local frequency generation unit 110 to switch the local frequency, causes the local frequency corresponding to the next wireless channel to be transmitted, and sets the next reception channel. (Step 207). If the receiving channel is No. When set to 16, the channel number of the second round is set. Starting from No. 1 The process proceeds to the search cycle ending at step 16 (steps 206 and 201).

If the received electric field strength is larger than the reference value,
The system information comparing unit 104 to which the result is sent from the receiving channel control unit 111 compares the system information, and compares the result with the receiving channel control unit 111 and the decoder unit 1.
05.

Here, when the system information does not match (step 204), the reception channel control section 111 determines that the reception channel is No. Check if it is set to 16,
No. If it is not set to No. 16, an instruction to switch the setting of the reception channel is issued (steps 206 and 207).
16 is set to channel No. 16 again. Proceed to the second search cycle starting from 1 (step 20)
6, 201).

If the system information matches, the receiving channel is determined as a target receiving channel (step 20).
4, 205), reception channel control section 111 fixes the local frequency through local frequency generation section 110, and decoder section 105 proceeds to the comparison of the selected call number information.

In this series of search operations, a target receiving channel to continue receiving is not determined, and the receiving channel is no. 16 and makes one cycle, the channel No.
Returning to 1 and entering the second search cycle, the search operation is repeated until the target reception channel is determined or the number of search cycles reaches a certain number without being determined.

It should be noted that the search order is first set to channel N
o. 1, but channel No. 1
When the number reaches Channel No. 6, 1, and the search may be performed from an arbitrary channel.

Next, a radio selective calling receiver according to a second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

The receiver of FIG. 2 differs from the receiver of FIG. 1 in the configuration in that a channel information storage unit 112 is provided. The channel information storage unit 112 stores the reception electric field strength obtained from the electric field detection unit 109 in the reception channel control unit 111 and the result of comparing the reception electric field strength with a predetermined reference value together with the channel number, and stores the reception channel The control unit 111 can use the received electric field information stored in the received electric field storage unit 112 to perform the subsequent search operation in the radio selective calling receiver more efficiently. FIG. 4 shows an example of the search operation procedure including the second and subsequent cycles, which is performed more effectively by using the information stored in the channel information storage unit 112 in the subsequent cycle.

In FIG. 4, step 303 in which received electric field information is stored in channel information storage section 112 is followed by step 304 in which it is determined whether or not the received electric field strength is larger than a reference value. Step 303 ′ stored in the channel information storage unit 112 is followed by step 305 of determining whether the received system information matches the system information held by the receiver.

The first search cycle is channel N
o. 1 to channel No. When the process is completed without determining the target reception channel up to 16 (step 307), the second search cycle is started. Here, the order of the reception channels is re-designated using the information stored in the channel information storage unit 112 in the previous steps 303 and 303 'so that the operation of the second search cycle is performed efficiently. (Step 309), and the first-order radio frequency channel after re-designation is set (Step 310). Thereafter, the search is performed in the same manner as in the first search cycle. When each step of the search is performed for all the channels after the re-designation without determining the target reception channel (Step 315), the search is re-designated for the third search cycle (Step 3).
09).

There are two methods for re-designating the order of the search for the reception channel in step 309. First
The second method arranges only the channels in which the received electric field did not exceed the reference value in the immediately preceding search cycle in the order in which the search was performed. The second method uses the received electric field in the immediately preceding search cycle in the immediately preceding search cycle. The channel whose strength exceeds the reference value and whose system information does not match is added. The latter method is considered to be effective when the carrier of the selective call receiver is moving at high speed.

The search operation shown in FIG. 4 is repeated until a target reception channel is determined or the number of search cycles reaches a predetermined number.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention, when a plurality of radio frequency channels are sequentially switched to search for a target radio frequency channel, if the received electric field strength is insufficient, the next channel is immediately switched to the next channel. Only when the strength exceeds a certain level is the system information checked for a match or mismatch. If there is no match, switch to the next channel immediately, and determine only the channel with the matching system information as the target radio frequency channel and select and call it. By proceeding to the reception of the number information, the time required for a search to determine a target radio frequency channel is significantly reduced, thereby preventing battery consumption and reducing the probability that a call cannot be received even if a call is received. There is. Further, by storing the coincidence / non-coincidence of the received electric field information and the channel information and using the same for re-designating the search order in the next search cycle, the next search can be efficiently performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a radio selective calling receiver according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a radio selective call receiver according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a radio frequency channel search operation in the radio selective calling receiver of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a radio frequency channel search operation in the radio selective calling receiver of FIG. 2;

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 101 antenna 102 radio section 103 demodulation section 104 system information comparison section 105 decoder section 106 notification section 107 display control section 108 display section 109 electric field detection section 110 local frequency generation section 111 reception channel control section 112 channel information storage section

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. Searching for radio frequency channels of a plurality of radio selective calling systems including system information for identifying a radio selective calling system, switching each radio frequency channel in order and receiving the radio frequency channels, When the selected paging receiver matches the system information held by the paging receiver, the radio paging receiver determines that the radio frequency channel being received is the intended radio frequency channel to continue receiving, Electric field detection means for detecting the intensity; and a reception channel control means for controlling a search for a radio frequency channel and determining a target reception channel, wherein the control means immediately when the reception electric field intensity is equal to or less than a certain value. When the radio frequency channel to be received is switched to the next radio frequency channel and the electric field strength exceeds the certain value Is characterized by comparing system information, switching to the next radio frequency channel when the system information does not match, and determining the radio frequency channel being received as a target reception channel when the system information matches. Receiving machine. 2. A storage means for storing information on a reception electric field obtained from said electric field detection means, wherein said reception channel control means uses the reception electric field information stored in said storage means, and performs radio communication in a subsequent search cycle. The radio selective call receiver according to claim 1, wherein the order of the search for the frequency channel is re-designated. 3. A receiving means for storing information on coincidence / mismatch of the system information, wherein the receiving channel control means further re-designates a switching order of radio frequency channels using a comparison result of the system information. The selective call receiver according to claim 2. 4. Searching for radio frequency channels of a plurality of radio selective calling systems including system information for identification of a radio selective calling system, receiving each radio frequency channel by sequentially switching the radio frequency channels, When the selected paging receiver matches the system information held by the paging receiver, in the radio frequency channel search method in the radio paging receiver, the radio frequency channel being received is determined to be the target radio frequency channel to continue receiving. A radio frequency channel is set as a reception channel to detect a reception field strength, and when the reception field strength does not exceed a certain value, the setting of the reception channel is immediately switched to the next radio frequency channel, and the reception field strength is If the value exceeds a certain value, the system information included in the reception channel and the system information held by the receiver If the system information does not match, the setting of the receiving channel is switched to the next radio frequency channel. If the system information matches, the target radio frequency to continue receiving the radio frequency channel being received is compared. A radio frequency channel search method in a radio selective calling receiver characterized by determining a channel. 5. The radio frequency channel search method according to claim 4 , wherein information on the reception electric field of each radio frequency channel is stored, and the information is used to re-designate the search order of the radio frequency channels in a subsequent search cycle. . 6. A system according to claim 6, wherein information on the coincidence / mismatch of the system information of each radio frequency channel is stored, and the information on the coincidence / mismatch of said system information is further used to reorder the search order of the radio frequency channels in a subsequent search cycle. The radio frequency channel search method according to claim 5 , wherein the search is performed.