RF circuit design - test oscillator

EE 70 February 1986 Fig. 1. The copper-clad universal RF board Type 85000 has fifty- seven islands and three isolated tracks for supply voltage or con- trol voltage such as ACC - lines, Fig. 2. Example of a voltage- controlled oscil- lator constructed on a copper-clad board. This first article deals with a virtually indispensable unit in RF design: a simple signal generator. This unit provides a signal at a certain fre- quency and amplitude, and may be frequency- or amplitude-modulated. It is intended to cover a frequency range of 2 - 150 MHz in a number of bands. Universal RF board The Type 85000 (available through our Readers Services - see page 80) is an unpierced copper-clad board with fifty-seven isolated islands and three isolated tracks. It is particularly suited to RF circuits because of the large earth plane, and enables the connections of all components to be kept really short - a prerequisite in RF design. Examples of the board proper and of a voltage-controlled...