[amsat-bb] L band gear

[Leffke, Zachary]

Sorry for the dupe 'Main Zach' (I'm the other 'Zach in a hat'), meant to send to the list.....

Def agree that would be awesome.......I've looked into doing a layout myself, but as always got distracted by other projects and my coding skills are quite lacking when talking about the base C libraries for interfacing with chips like this, which unfortunately tends to discourage me if I don't know for certain there is already a library somewhere.....(preferably for Arduino, another limitation in my case, wish I were more comfortable with TI chips.....).  

But, I did just find this (though commit history goes back a few years......not sure why I didn't find it way back when, but also not surprising), and there may be other libraries out there now (or more that I missed back when I was looking around).

https://github.com/PeraZver/Microwave-Transmitter

KiCad designs and Teensy SW (maybe Arduino compatible or easily portable) for controlling the MAX2871.  Haven't actually downloaded and taken a look, so no idea if it works, but it looks encouraging, looks like there is also a digitally controllable attenuator for tighter output level control......the images alone look like they have maybe 0402 and smaller components (that would be a challenge for me with my little tweezer/hotplate surface mount technique......0805 no prob, can do 0603 if necessary......anything smaller and I get 'twitchy').

Might be worth giving it a shot.....

-Zach, KJ4QLP

-----Original Message-----
From: AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org> On Behalf Of Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2020 3:06 PM
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] L band gear

On 05/14/20 13:57, Leffke, Zachary via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> Again, not a drop in replacement for something like the DigiLO (Though I did confirm the digiLO has specific switch settings that would produce Ifs at 2m or 70cm for a 1265-ish RF freq.....there are a couple options).  The Si5351 goes up to 160 MHz for starters (not 6 GHz), is a square wave generator and produces lots of harmonics (filters!)........but it is cheap, simple to use, and that first link above shows how to make a pretty cheap, GPS disciplined signal generator.........There are other 'watch outs' about the base crystal frequency when using the higher frequencies....not sure exactly what the issue is, something about step size......but that's the fun of homebrew.....lots of threads to pull.

Zach,

Someone industrious person could create a break-out board for the 
MAX2870/MAX2871 and get 6 GHz. It would require careful engineering, but 
would be interesting.

--- Zach
N0ZGO
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