EMI prevention / protection?

I'm using the wein bridge to generate audio tones that are fed to the
transmitter for digital radio communication (basically a homebrew ASK
radio modem). I'd be open to using that, but I'm not aware of any
radio modems that output square waves.

This oscillator also has 2 digital pots attached: 1 to trim the space
tone, and 1 to trim the mark tone. There's a high speed switch
between the two pots to rapidly switch between mark and space tones.
I could use this same setup with a 555 and trim the resistor to vary
the pulse duration, but I'm not sure what impact a square wave would
have on transmission, reception, decoding, etc...?

Has anyone heard of a square wave being used as an audio tone for
digital radio communication?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

On Oct 30, 12:06*pm, George Herold wrote:
Hmm I have no idea if that will make any difference. *What are you
using to control the feedback? *Can you use a more robust oscillator
(as John suggested) Some type of 'bang-bang' rather than sitting on
the 'knife-edge' of oscillation with the Wein bridge. *I needed the
low harmonic distortion of the Wein bridge... Is that what you need?

George H.

On Oct 30, 1:40*pm, "dave.harper" wrote:
I'm using the wein bridge to generate audio tones that are fed to the
transmitter for digital radio communication (basically a homebrew ASK
radio modem). *I'd be open to using that, but I'm not aware of any
radio modems that output square waves.

This oscillator also has 2 digital pots attached: 1 to trim the space
tone, and 1 to trim the mark tone. *There's a high speed switch
between the two pots to rapidly switch between mark and space tones.
I could use this same setup with a 555 and trim the resistor to vary
the pulse duration, but I'm not sure what impact a square wave would
have on transmission, reception, decoding, etc...?

Has anyone heard of a square wave being used as an audio tone for
digital radio communication?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

On Oct 30, 12:06*pm, George Herold wrote:



Hmm I have no idea if that will make any difference. *What are you
using to control the feedback? *Can you use a more robust oscillator
(as John suggested) Some type of 'bang-bang' rather than sitting on
the 'knife-edge' of oscillation with the Wein bridge. *I needed the
low harmonic distortion of the Wein bridge... Is that what you need?

George H.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi Dave, I know nothing about ASK radio modem.
I think you can get a triangle wave out of a 555 (Or some other charge/
discharge osc.) You can then low pass filter the triangle to get rid
of the sharp peaks.. There are also some trianlge wave to sine wave
converter circuits that use diodes or transistors to 'smooth' the
tiangle wave. If you don't care too much about harmonic content then
either approach may work.

George H.

Hey OM:

ASK is CW pure and simple. What you have is infinitely variable speed
CW. And some times the speed varies so much you can't tell if it's a
dit or a dah.

You can't beat CW, no way, no how, for the best source, of signal, in
an EMI environment.
Towit you can't beat ASK either.

Just keep on doing what you are doing.

As for square wave for audio, we are looking at an infinite number of
harmonics in a square wave, and that may be a good thing, but is it
what you want?

73 OM
de n8zu



On Oct 30, 12:40 pm, "dave.harper" wrote:
I'm using the wein bridge to generate audio tones that are fed to the
transmitter for digital radio communication (basically a homebrew ASK
radio modem). I'd be open to using that, but I'm not aware of any
radio modems that output square waves.

This oscillator also has 2 digital pots attached: 1 to trim the space
tone, and 1 to trim the mark tone. There's a high speed switch
between the two pots to rapidly switch between mark and space tones.
I could use this same setup with a 555 and trim the resistor to vary
the pulse duration, but I'm not sure what impact a square wave would
have on transmission, reception, decoding, etc...?

Has anyone heard of a square wave being used as an audio tone for
digital radio communication?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

On Oct 30, 12:06 pm, George Herold wrote:

Hmm I have no idea if that will make any difference. What are you
using to control the feedback? Can you use a more robust oscillator
(as John suggested) Some type of 'bang-bang' rather than sitting on
the 'knife-edge' of oscillation with the Wein bridge. I needed the
low harmonic distortion of the Wein bridge... Is that what you need?

George H.

On Oct 30, 9:40*am, "dave.harper" wrote:
I'm using the wein bridge to generate audio tones that are fed to the
transmitter for digital radio communication (basically a homebrew ASK
radio modem). *I'd be open to using that, but I'm not aware of any
radio modems that output square waves.

This oscillator also has 2 digital pots attached: 1 to trim the space
tone, and 1 to trim the mark tone. *There's a high speed switch
between the two pots to rapidly switch between mark and space tones.
I could use this same setup with a 555 and trim the resistor to vary
the pulse duration, but I'm not sure what impact a square wave would
have on transmission, reception, decoding, etc...?

Has anyone heard of a square wave being used as an audio tone for
digital radio communication?

I think you mean "AFSK". At least that's what I think you mean. ASK =
Amplitude Shift Keying.

Something in the transmitter chain stops (or should stop!) the square
wave from being square with all the odd harmonics going out to
infinity.

This something may be in the audio stage (example: low pass audio
filter), or the IF stage (example: bandpass filter), or in the RF
stage (example: tuned circuits).

It is very doubtful that after going through the transmitter and
receiver that it'll come out as a square wave on the other end.
Choosing to transmit a square wave audio waveform is usually a poor
choice because you know that it can't come out looking that pretty on
the other end. This sort of design decision might be made for a very
low-end radio control transmitter of the 60's or 70's out of
ignorance, but today we know how to do far better with little extra
effort.

Most designs make a conscious choice to be a friendly transmitter, and
limit splatter and unnecessary bandwidth that would be in violation of
the FCC rules, by running any square wave through a low pass audio
filter AND additionally using a rational choice for the IF filtering
too. Way better than nothing, is a simple RC low pass in the audio
stage. Still to be nice the resulting audio level has to be carefully
set to not cause splatter in subsequent stages.

Tim N3QE

On Nov 1, 11:42 am, Tim Shoppa wrote:
On Oct 30, 9:40 am, "dave.harper" wrote:

I'm using the wein bridge to generate audio tones that are fed to the
transmitter for digital radio communication (basically a homebrew ASK
radio modem). I'd be open to using that, but I'm not aware of any
radio modems that output square waves.

This oscillator also has 2 digital pots attached: 1 to trim the space
tone, and 1 to trim the mark tone. There's a high speed switch
between the two pots to rapidly switch between mark and space tones.
I could use this same setup with a 555 and trim the resistor to vary
the pulse duration, but I'm not sure what impact a square wave would
have on transmission, reception, decoding, etc...?

Has anyone heard of a square wave being used as an audio tone for
digital radio communication?

I think you mean "AFSK". At least that's what I think you mean. ASK =
Amplitude Shift Keying.

Something in the transmitter chain stops (or should stop!) the square
wave from being square with all the odd harmonics going out to
infinity.

This something may be in the audio stage (example: low pass audio
filter), or the IF stage (example: bandpass filter), or in the RF
stage (example: tuned circuits).

It is very doubtful that after going through the transmitter and
receiver that it'll come out as a square wave on the other end.
Choosing to transmit a square wave audio waveform is usually a poor
choice because you know that it can't come out looking that pretty on
the other end. This sort of design decision might be made for a very
low-end radio control transmitter of the 60's or 70's out of
ignorance, but today we know how to do far better with little extra
effort.

Most designs make a conscious choice to be a friendly transmitter, and
limit splatter and unnecessary bandwidth that would be in violation of
the FCC rules, by running any square wave through a low pass audio
filter AND additionally using a rational choice for the IF filtering
too. Way better than nothing, is a simple RC low pass in the audio
stage. Still to be nice the resulting audio level has to be carefully
set to not cause splatter in subsequent stages.


Hey OM

I looked at this guys profile.

I would say he's into telemetry.

If you want to stay away from EMI take it to the 2.4Ghz band.

I don't think he's a ham..

I think he cross forumed this post.

My best guess is he is running into trouble on the VHF/UHF spectrum
where there is tonnes o EMI. QRN and QRM.

73 OM
de n8zu