The ICS501 / ICS511 from Renesas are easy to use, fully integrated clock multipliers for output frequencies up to 200 MHz. What makes them particuarly interesting is the integrated crystal oscillator circuit and ability to produce some fractional multiples, such as 6.25 or 2.5. So let’s find out if they’re interesting for the hobbyist who wants to generate clock signals in the VHF range.
A recurring challenge for Arduino projects is that variables are volatile and will be lost completely unless previously stored to some sort of non-volatile storage such as de inbuilt EEPROM. This article shows a minimalistic approach to detect sudden loss of power and automatically store a variable to an EEPROM adress.
The Diamex Prog-S2 is an universal USB ISP programmer vor various microcontrollers including Atmel AVRs. This article shows how to integrate the programmer into the Arduino IDE
This article is going to take you into the world of automation. Using MATLAB and commercial off-the-shelf bits and pieces, this article will show how to measure the forward gain of a RF device.
Thermal design is one of those things engineers don’t really learn in school and hobbyists often don’t even think about. This article is going to show some basic math with a practical example. One of my portable police scanners has an external 6V jack. To use it in my car I used my standard linear … [Read more…]
Not too long ago I bought some white strobe lights with a strobe controller of Amazon. This exact controller is spread all over Amazon and eBay but only provides strobe patterns that I didn’t particularly like. So it’s time for a hack. The strobe lights I purchased were white in color but they have the … [Read more…]
Quick introduction to Secondary Surveillance Radar and how it works. After explaining the absolute basics, I am showing how one can simulate transponder responses using off-the-shelf test equipment. RTL1090 is used to verify the generated signals as valid. If you want the arb waveform file for the 7777 Mode A response, here it is: https://baltic-lab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SQUAWK_7777_IDENT.zip