Teledyne LeCroy and Agilent offer brand new 12-bit oscilloscopes and promise clearer, crisper waveform displays than an 8-bit oscilloscope can deliver. But what does it really mean for a real world application to have 12 instead of 8-bit resolution? I have no idea if that was just my perception or if the year 2012 was … [Read more…]
The ADF4360 series from Analog Devices is a a family of integer-N-synthesizer chips with on-board VCOs. Since the chips cover all amateur radio bands between 4m – 13 cm and are rather inexpensive, they are predestined to be used in homebrew amateur radio equipment. Not too long ago I reviewed ADI’s wideband PLL synthesizer ADF4351 … [Read more…]
The CC2531 is the second generation ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 compliant System-onChip with an optimized 8051 MCU core and radio for the 2.4 GHz unlicensed ISM/SRD band from Texas Instruments. But what good is it, really? To make the evaluation of the CC2531 a bit easier, TI put together the CC2531EMK. The CC2531EMK is a an evaluation … [Read more…]
Goldsource STU-2000 is a 2000 Watt step up/down transformer designed to convert 110 Volts to 220 Volts and vice versa. It’s also equipped with a 5 V USB output suitable for powering USB devices. The STU-2000 is available for less than USD 100. Let’s see how good it is. Before I write any further, let’s … [Read more…]
Inverters are used all over the place to make mains voltages available in conditions where only 12 volts are available. Care needs to be taken to not buy low-quality products and damage sensitive mains operated equipment. Today, I tried out a 300 Watt 12 V DC to 220 V AC inverter I bought off eBay … [Read more…]
Passive probes for the GHz range are costly and it’s usually not too economical to invest into one if you’re just a hobbyist. But regular, cheap probes will not work on signals in the GHz range. So is there a homebrew solution? Yes, there is, check it out! Every passive probe and every piece of … [Read more…]
This article is probably going to be the shortest and most straight to the point article I will ever write. While I was looking for different kinds of toroidal ferrite / iron cores, I came across the online shop of amateur radio operator Dieter Gentzow, W8DIZ [1]. Dieter has a huge selection of toroids and … [Read more…]
Frequency generation is usually a very critical part in every RF design. The higher the target frequency, the higher complexity. Usually. With the ADF4351, Analog Devices offers an effort-saving component level solution for frequencies up to 4.4 GHz. The ADF4351 from Analog Devices (ADI) is a modern wideband PLL synthesizer with integrated low phase noise … [Read more…]