In article . com,
says...

I wonder if anyone has successfully converted a
thrown-away cell-phone into a spectrum analyser?

snippety of preposterous proposal

What are you smoking/drinking/injecting? More importantly, why
didn't you offer to share?

Are you trolling, drunk, high, or actually serious? Inquiring
minds want to know.


--
Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute.
(Known to some as Bruce Lane, ARS KC7GR,
kyrrin (a/t) bluefeathertech[d=o=t]calm -- www.bluefeathertech.com
"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped
with surreal ports?"

Hello Polymath

I wonder if anyone has successfully converted a
thrown-away cell-phone into a spectrum analyser?

We would seem to have all the necessary components
in there for free - keyboard, graphical display,
post-demodulation DSP, Frequency Synthesizer,
RF good up to 1 GHz (2G5Hz if an ex-WCDMA unit)

Here would seem to be an opportunity to equip
all Radio Hams with a reasonably state-of-the-art
piece of test gear, that when coupled with an
IF generator would give us all a network analyser
into the bargain!

If you have web access, I have built a scalar network analyser from one of
the commonly available TV transmitters
http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/NetAn/index.htm.

These TV transmitters use the SP5055 2.6GHz I2C frequency synthesisers and
are easily programmed from a PIC. You could build yourself a spectrum
analyser using the synthesiser as the sweep oscillator as I did.

If you successfully reverse engineer a cellphone enough to be able to use
any of the parts you describe I am sure that there would be a great deal of
interest if you published the information for any particular model.

73, Howard G6LVB

"Howard Long" wrote in message
...
Hello Polymath

If you successfully reverse engineer a cellphone enough to be able to use
any of the parts you describe I am sure that there would be a great deal
of
interest if you published the information for any particular model.


Sweep oscillator on the X axis of an old junk oscilloscope and the IF stage
of an old multiband radio always did the job for me, mind you that was until
I went to university of course when we found a new use for the spectrum
analyser - listening to Radio 1 in the lab mainly.

"G1LVN \(for it is he\)" wrote:

: I went to university of course when we found a new use for the spectrum
: analyser - listening to Radio 1 in the lab mainly.

you mean you didnt use it to heat the place on a cold morning ?

"ZZZZPK "

wrote in message ...
"G1LVN \(for it is he\)" wrote:

: I went to university of course when we found a new use for the spectrum
: analyser - listening to Radio 1 in the lab mainly.

you mean you didnt use it to heat the place on a cold morning ?



That's what you use the Tektronix 555 for.

"James F. Mayer" wrote:

: you mean you didnt use it to heat the place on a cold morning ?
:
: That's what you use the Tektronix 555 for.

tee hee...

had a dream the other night that i was back fixing 621-a3's !!

"Polymath" wrote in message
ups.com...
I wonder if anyone has successfully converted a
thrown-away cell-phone into a spectrum analyser?

We would seem to have all the necessary components
in there for free - keyboard, graphical display,
post-demodulation DSP, Frequency Synthesizer,
RF good up to 1 GHz (2G5Hz if an ex-WCDMA unit)

Here would seem to be an opportunity to equip
all Radio Hams with a reasonably state-of-the-art
piece of test gear, that when coupled with an
IF generator would give us all a network analyser
into the bargain!


A few people are looking at turning one of the xilinx S3 (spartan3)
starter kits into spectrum analysers and logic analyser with a vga output.
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/des...ey=DO-SPAR3-DK

http://www.fpga4fun.com/digitalscope.html
http://www.fpga4fun.com/board_flashy.html

Problem with a lot of the phone stuff is getting access to the chips pins
for programming
(if they had them in the first place).
Chips are factory programmed and not reprogrammable.

Alex Gibson wrote:

A few people are looking at turning one of the xilinx S3 (spartan3)
starter kits into spectrum analysers and logic analyser with a vga output.
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/des...ey=DO-SPAR3-DK

http://www.fpga4fun.com/digitalscope.html
http://www.fpga4fun.com/board_flashy.html

Problem with a lot of the phone stuff is getting access to the chips pins
for programming
(if they had them in the first place).
Chips are factory programmed and not reprogrammable.

I really like the idea of an FPGA based spectrum analyzer. I have been
planning to put one together for a while and have started on
schematics. Rather than doing VGA output I am using USB to a PC. I
have the FPGA/DSP board up and running.

It will probably be some form of a dual conversion design with the
input signal being upconverted to an IF around 2GHz and then fed to a
quadrature demodulator.

One other really nice thing that can be done with a FPGA easily is a
Arbitrary waveform generator using block rams as a lookup table.

http://dlharmon.com/dspcard/adcdac.html

Darrell Harmon