RF

Five technologies for building 5G | EDN

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4458807/Five-technologies-for-building-5G?utm_content=buffer90279&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer 5G is widely considered a mobile technology that won’t be available until perhaps 2020 or 2021, and even then, not widely.  Cisco predicts that by 2021, a 5G connection will generate 4.7 times more traffic than the average 4G connection. 5G will be a quantum leap from today’s LTE-Advanced networks.  →

My antenna measurements with RTL-SDR

In my Antenna measurements with RF noise source posting I described how antenna measurements can be done with RF noise source, directional coupler and SDR radio (DVB-T stick). To do measurement we connect the noise source to the output of the coupler, the antenna to the input of the coupler and the RTL-SDR dongle to →

Trying TV signal splitter for antenna measurements

I did some antenna measurement with RTL-DSR with help of directional coupler. Before I realised I had directional coupler, I did some experimenting with antenna signal splitter. RF splitters are widely used in RF applications. The enable RF power to be split or combined within an environment where the characteristic impedance is maintained. There are →

Software Defined Radio (SDR) category

Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system. Experimenting with software defined radio used to be expensive, but now it is cheap. Nowadays it is →

SDR passive radar

This is good stuff! Building your own SDR-based Passive Radar on a Shoestring http://hackaday.com/2015/06/05/building-your-own-sdr-based-passive-radar-on-a-shoestring/ two $8 RTL software defined radio dongles and two log-periodic antennas. And get this, the radar system you’re going to build works by listening for existing transmissions that bounce off the targets being measured! A passive radar is a special type →

Antenna measurements with RF noise source

Using the wide band characteristics of SDR radios, it is possible replicate some of the functionality of much more expensive equipment such as a vector network analyzer.  Actually what SDR can do it scalar network analyzer functionality. A scalar network analyzer can measure amplitude, but a vector network analyzer can measure amplitude and phase and →

Filter measurements with RF noise source

I got my BG7TBL RF noise source to make some RF measurements. To make those measurements, I needed some instructions how to make them. I first started with filter measurements because I could make them with the devices I have. Two good tutorials for doing measurement are Measuring Filters and VSWR With RTL-SDR and RTL-SDR →

BG7TBL RF noise source

I have played with software defined radio using cheap DVB-T stick for some time. Receiving radio transmissions is interesting, but it works also for other applications. By reading RTL-SDR Tutorial: Measuring filter characteristics and antenna VSWR with an RTL-SDR and noise source article I understood that I could use my RTL-SDR stick for many RF →

IoT: The Interference of Things | EDN

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/the-emc-blog/4458714/IoT–The-Interference-of-Things?utm_content=bufferae2f7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer The writer of this article declares that IoT stands for “Interference of Things.” Anything else you may have heard is just marketing hype. Relatively few connected gadgets will use wireline communications, the bulk of these devices will connect wirelessly over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular or something else. Some IoT devices will be designed to limit →