The current issue of ARRL’s magazine QST features an article about PSK31 on 2m in FM. This article is going to show why this is an unnecessary waste of bandwidth and therefore nonsense. PSK31 is a digital transmission mode designed for minimum bandwidth and great performance even in weak signal conditions. Sending a PSK31 signal […]
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Electronics
Review: STM32 F3-series Discovery Kit
STM’s STM32 F3 series of microcontrollers offer 32-bit performance with DSP functionality. To make the evaluation of this microcontroller easier, STMicroelectronics offers an evaluation board called the STM32F3DISCOVERY. If you have ever wanted to experiment with an RISC microcontroller that comes with special Digital Signal Processing (DSP) capability, the STM32F3DISCOVERY board might just be the […]
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DSSS / BPSK Clock Recovery with the Abracon ABFT
Clock recovery in Spread Spectrum applications and BPSK modulated signals can be somewhat tricky. There are no commercial solutions available solely for this task either. Or are there? This article shows a great off-label use of the Abracon ABFT. Clock recovery in a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) receiver can be quite a challenge. Because […]
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Review: Abracon ABFT Frequency Translators
In March, 2012, Abracon announced the production of ultra-low jitter, VCXO based frequency translators / jitter attenuators. This is supposed to resolve some problems that accompany classic PLL-based designs at an affordable price. Now, the ABFT frequency translators / jitter attenuators are available on the market and it’s time to have a closer look. The […]
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Closer look at a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Signal
This article is going to take a closer look at the properties of a pseudo random bit sequence and a simple direct sequence spread spectrum signal both in the time- and frequency domain using the FFT capabilities of a Teledyne LeCroy WaveAce 1002. A while back, I posted an article about a Pseudorandom Number Generator […]
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Review: Jackson Labs GPSTCXO Eval Board
Jackson Labs offers several different precision timing solutions. Among them are various GPS-disciplined oscillators. They sent me an evaluation board for one of their ultra small, low-cost GPSDO. So let’s check it out! The GPS-disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) reviewed in this article is a state-of-the-art eval board from Jackson labs equipped with a high-performance GPS receiver, […]
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Review: Teledyne LeCroy WaveAce 1002 – Digital Storage Oscilloscope
Low-cost oscilloscope are a booming market. With the low-cost, entry level WaveAce series Teledyne LeCroy wants to get their piece of the big cake. This review is going to have a closer look at the Teledyne LeCroy WaveAce 1002. The WaveAce series oscilloscopes from Teledyne LeCroy are LeCroy’s answer to low-cost entry level oscilloscopes. They […]
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Blown Capacitors – Repairing LCDs and TFTs
Blown capacitors have been around as long as capacitors themselves. Replacing defective capacitors is something every electronics engineer should be capable off. Let’s have a look how to turn a broken LC Display back into a functioning device. Free TVs and computer screens are almost literally laying on the side of the road. About a […]
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Repairing a MRC DAR Plus Receiver
This is another piece of industry story time. This time it’s about Vislink MRC DAR Plus receivers and transmitters. It shows that even highly integrated devices in the 1 each including shipping. After carefully replacing the MMIC on the PCB, I tested the IF module by applying a 70 MHz signal again. This time the […]
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Fixing a microstrip line in a professional Microwave ODU
A while back, I was asked if I could repair a ODU for a BMS Truck-Coder II. Someone had managed to rip the N connector straight off the casing, including a bit of the microstrip line from the distributed element output filter. See what approach I took to fix the broken stripline. The BMS Truck-Coder […]
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