Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#2
![]() |
|||
|
|||
![]()
If you have a directional coupler, you are most of the way to an SWR
meter... Especially if you are willing to make directional couplers for specific narrow bands (say 10% or 20% bandwidth), it's pretty easy to do. If you get the freeware "RFSim99" software, you'll find in it a tool to design several different types of couplers. One thing they don't make clear is that the coupling for the microstrip and stripline versions is for a structure 1/4 wave long. The coupling decreases as the frequency goes up or down from that length. It's certainly useable at half the design frequency, and in fact you can find articles on the web about how the coupling varies with frequency, and for structures that give broader bandwidth. If you only care about ratios (e.g. for SWR calculation), then the exact coupling doesn't matter anyway. For your application, at only 20mW, you'll want fairly high coupling. 20dB coupling would give you 100mV out to a 50 ohm load, for 20mW in. I've seen articles in "Wireless World" for amplified RF probes. But a simple diode detector probe feeding a high impedance voltmeter will be a high impedance load to the circuit you are probing, so long as the diode has low capacitance. You should be able to find Schottky diodes that have 0.5pF capacitance at very low junction reverse voltage, I think, though they are likely to be pretty delicate. (Don't zap them with static!) With a high-resolution DVM to monitor the output, or with a DC preamp that has high input impedance and extremely low input offset voltage (such as the Harris chopper-stabilized CMOS part), you can see RF voltages down to below a millivolt fairly easily. You need to calibrate the amplitude response, however, and it drifts some with temperature. With a buffer amplifier, you could use one of the RF power monitor ICs from vendors like Analog Devices or Linear Technology and have more stable calibration, reading "linearly in dB". An advantage of diode detection is that it's very cheap, and you can afford to put detectors on your directional coupler outputs and just leave them there--plus they don't require power supplies. That 20dB coupler with diode detectors and high resolution metering would allow you to still "see" the reverse-port coupled power down 40dB below 20mW input with good diode detectors, and it's very unlikely you'll be able to make the coupler with such good directionality anyway. If you don't already have them, you should add "step attenuators" to your list of equipment. It can be useful for a lot of things. You may be able to pick up a pair of 1dB step and 10dB step attenuators from some place like ebay, maybe even at a reasonable price. Are you going to be making so many measurements that you need a SINAD meter?? Do you have an RF generator with calibrated output? Lessee...20mW at 50 ohms is just about 1 Vrms. For that much power, you need sensitive amplifiers and high impedances?? If you really do need that for probing, you'll need an amplifier at the probe tip. 1pF at 1GHz is about 160 ohms reactance. But for that very reason, 1GHz circuits are designed at low impedances, and you shouldn't need a particularly high impedance to probe for frequencies, at least. Cheers, Tom |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Forum | |||
FS: Test Equipment, Parts, Tubes, Books | Equipment | |||
FS: Test Equipment, Parts, Tubes, Books | Equipment | |||
FS: Test Equipment, Parts, Tubes, Books | Equipment | |||
Question for the No coders : post from Kim | Policy |