Hi

Even using EL116's in die form on a thick film substrate, I've found it pretty hard to keep everything playing nice over a wide range of levels, distortion, and frequency.

Bob

On Mar 25, 2010, at 5:23 PM, paul swed wrote:

Nice MMIC. Do you have any experience with this chip ? I wonder about
availability, because I'm in not in the US. Another option might be the
NLB-310 from RFMD.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] De la
part de paul swed
Envoyé : jeudi 25 mars 2010 21:42
À : Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Objet : Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler board
forHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

Well if you do want a amplifier/fuse. The mini circuit gali-1 0-8Ghz is $2
in small quantites.
Just a thought.

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:37 PM, John Miles jmiles@pop.net wrote:

not

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That's 100% true. I tried the MSA-0x86 from Avago and got some strange
auto-oscillation and many noise at some frequencies. I will try my best to
avoid a MMIC, but sensitivity might be lower on the < 100 MHz and > 5 GHz
area.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] De la
part de Bob Camp
Envoyé : jeudi 25 mars 2010 22:06
À : 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'
Objet : Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler
boardforHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

Hi

Every time I've ever done much "amp in front of the counter" stuff, I've
discovered a great way to make a doubler / tripler / quadrupler / random
number generator. There always seems to be some magic combination of
frequency and level that does strange things, often multiple combinations.
They rarely pop up when testing the front end design it's self. They are
amazingly easy to come up with when actually using the device.

Strange how things always seem to work that way.

If you really need to amplify, something like a very high speed ECL gate
biased in it's linear region is a good thing to try. At no extra charge it
would give you a differential signal to route into the divider. You are
already pretty sensitive so it may not help at all.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of paul swed
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:42 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler
boardforHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

Well if you do want a amplifier/fuse. The mini circuit gali-1 0-8Ghz is $2
in small quantites.
Just a thought.

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:37 PM, John Miles jmiles@pop.net wrote:

not

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Samuel,

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Samuel DEMEULEMEESTER sam@canardpc.comwrote:

Samuel,
I do not but have used the mini circuit mar series for years. Less then $1.
Very reasonable behaviors. Since I am not sure you need a lot of gain you
could add attenuators ahead of and behind to insure matching and stability.
(And they could still act as a fuse.)
Minicirciuts has WW distribution they have been around a long time.
I know many want an internal design. For me an external sma connected pc
board is fine.
But then I see various costs $100-200 not sure I really need it. I already
have various counters that go to 50 Ghz Older HPs that I have the correct
sampling heads and modules for etc.
These are typically in the -10dbm range for sensitivity.

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 6:23 PM, paul swed paulswedb@gmail.com wrote:

Well, I just done some tests and I will not be able to avoid a MMIC in the
front stage if I want to preserve sensitivity in the lower and upper range.
Without a MMIC, sensitivity drops to -10 dBm at 200 Mhz and -5 dBm at 100
Mhz. The same for the top of the range (-10 dBm at 6 Ghz, -5 dBm at 7 Ghz
and -2 dBm at 8 GHz). This looks bad compared to the -20 dBm to -30 dBm I
got on the 1-4 GHz range.

I think I will use a ERA-1+ MMIC. Spec'd at DC-8 GHz and "Unconditionally
stable" according to the datasheet :-D

-----Message d'origine-----
De : time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] De la
part de Samuel DEMEULEMEESTER
Envoyé : jeudi 25 mars 2010 23:17
À : 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'
Objet : Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler
boardforHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

That's 100% true. I tried the MSA-0x86 from Avago and got some strange
auto-oscillation and many noise at some frequencies. I will try my best to
avoid a MMIC, but sensitivity might be lower on the < 100 MHz and > 5 GHz
area.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] De la
part de Bob Camp
Envoyé : jeudi 25 mars 2010 22:06
À : 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'
Objet : Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler
boardforHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

Hi

Every time I've ever done much "amp in front of the counter" stuff, I've
discovered a great way to make a doubler / tripler / quadrupler / random
number generator. There always seems to be some magic combination of
frequency and level that does strange things, often multiple combinations.
They rarely pop up when testing the front end design it's self. They are
amazingly easy to come up with when actually using the device.

Strange how things always seem to work that way.

If you really need to amplify, something like a very high speed ECL gate
biased in it's linear region is a good thing to try. At no extra charge it
would give you a differential signal to route into the divider. You are
already pretty sensitive so it may not help at all.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of paul swed
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:42 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler
boardforHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

Well if you do want a amplifier/fuse. The mini circuit gali-1 0-8Ghz is $2
in small quantites.
Just a thought.

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:37 PM, John Miles jmiles@pop.net wrote:

not

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
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and follow the instructions there.

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To unsubscribe, go to
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Hi

I can't recommend a replacement, but the ERA-1's do some odd things when driven into compression. They don't make good limiters.

Bob

On Mar 25, 2010, at 8:06 PM, Samuel DEMEULEMEESTER wrote:

RFMD seems to produce some nice MMIC, for example the NBB-300
(http://www.rfmd.com/CS/Documents/Nbb-300.pdf), but I never used a RFMD
amplifier. I used Agilent/Avago MMIC since years with great results, but
always with frequencies no more than 3 GHz.

Anyone have some experience with DC-8/12 GHz MMIC and which's the best ?

-----Message d'origine-----
De : time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] De la
part de Bob Camp
Envoyé : vendredi 26 mars 2010 01:27
À : Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Objet : Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler
boardforHP/Agilent53181A/53131A/53132A

Hi

I can't recommend a replacement, but the ERA-1's do some odd things when
driven into compression. They don't make good limiters.

Bob

On Mar 25, 2010, at 8:06 PM, Samuel DEMEULEMEESTER wrote:

range.

https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts

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My experience is that they roll off pretty quickly right where you are
looking for extra gain.  You'll probably end up with more gain where you
don't need/want it, and not as much as you'd like at the very top end of the
range.

The best off-the-shelf performance will probably come from Hittite's parts.
Compared to the Mini-Circuits parts, they are relatively power-hungry,
expensive, and hard to work with.  They're available only as LFCSP packages
or bare dice, and only in lots of 10 or more.

IMHO few users would reject your prescaler board due to a sensitivity spec
of 0 dBm.  At lower signal levels people are more likely to be using a
spectrum analyzer than a high-precision counter.

-- john, KE5FX

About MMIC, that's true for the Minicircuits parts. Roll off is high at the
top of the range (from 13 dB to 8 dB), but the NBB-300 from RFMD seems to
have flat gain curve from DC to rated freq. This said, that's only paper and
I don't know the real behavior of this chip.

About sensitivity, 0 dBm is for 8 GHz, exceeding the rated specs of the
components (7 GHz for the ADF4107 for exemple). So, my "real" target is 6
GHz, but even at those freq, sensibility without amp stage is -10 dBm in the
worst case (it began to drop after 4 GHz). Doesn't looks sensitive enough,
does it ?

-----Message d'origine-----
De : time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] De la
part de John Miles
Envoyé : vendredi 26 mars 2010 01:50
À : Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Objet : Re: [time-nuts] Low-Cost 6+ GHz Prescaler

My experience is that they roll off pretty quickly right where you are
looking for extra gain.  You'll probably end up with more gain where you
don't need/want it, and not as much as you'd like at the very top end of the
range.

The best off-the-shelf performance will probably come from Hittite's parts.
Compared to the Mini-Circuits parts, they are relatively power-hungry,
expensive, and hard to work with.  They're available only as LFCSP packages
or bare dice, and only in lots of 10 or more.

IMHO few users would reject your prescaler board due to a sensitivity spec
of 0 dBm.  At lower signal levels people are more likely to be using a
spectrum analyzer than a high-precision counter.

-- john, KE5FX

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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