Well,
More fiddling today and I have been making a return loss bridge to help with my "RF Workbench" measurements.
A RLB (Return Loss Bridge) is a device that will help me understand how close to a desired target impedance of 50R things are. And by things I mean kind of anything really, an amplifier, a dummy load, an antenna, a rubber plant - anything. That last item isn't necessarily true - I am just checking you are paying attention.
What a RLB does is allow you to measure the difference between the input power and the power reflected as a result of an impedance miss-match. So the higher the return loss the better the impedance match (unlike SWR where lower numbers indicate a better match).
Here's a simple schematic of an RLB that I have stolen:
So, I've made mine using 2 x 100R resistors in parallel for each of R1, R2 and R3 and the transformer T is wound with 10 turns bifilar on a FT37-43:
Now, to calculate the bridge directivity, firstly you would connect a 50R output signal generator at the test frequency to the "RF" port and a 50R terminated 'scope at the "Detector" port. Once this is set up we need to measure the peak-to-peak voltage reading on the 'scope. In my case I set this up for 7MHz and read a value of 57 mV with the "?" port open circuit. If I now connect a 50R load to the "?" port and take the reading again, I get a value of 3.7 mV. This tells me that the directivity of the bridge is:
20 LOG (57 / 3.7) = 23 dB (ish)
Now, that's a bit pants! I was hoping for at least 30dB. THe first thing I tried was changing the toroid in the transformer "T" - I remade it using a FT37-50 with 10 bifilar turns:
This change hasn't made any difference at all!
The theory of operation is that you would set your signal generator to the frequency required and then first measure the detector reading with the "?" port open and then repeat the measurement with the device under test connected to the "?" port like this:
But given that my RLB only has a directivity of 23 dB ish I think I need to make some improvements. This should turn out to be a useful addition to the shack however, and in my quest to learn more and more about RF measurement, impedance and the like - this has been a good experiment!
Odd, Egh?
More fiddling today and I have been making a return loss bridge to help with my "RF Workbench" measurements.
A RLB (Return Loss Bridge) is a device that will help me understand how close to a desired target impedance of 50R things are. And by things I mean kind of anything really, an amplifier, a dummy load, an antenna, a rubber plant - anything. That last item isn't necessarily true - I am just checking you are paying attention.
What a RLB does is allow you to measure the difference between the input power and the power reflected as a result of an impedance miss-match. So the higher the return loss the better the impedance match (unlike SWR where lower numbers indicate a better match).
Here's a simple schematic of an RLB that I have stolen:
So, I've made mine using 2 x 100R resistors in parallel for each of R1, R2 and R3 and the transformer T is wound with 10 turns bifilar on a FT37-43:
Now, to calculate the bridge directivity, firstly you would connect a 50R output signal generator at the test frequency to the "RF" port and a 50R terminated 'scope at the "Detector" port. Once this is set up we need to measure the peak-to-peak voltage reading on the 'scope. In my case I set this up for 7MHz and read a value of 57 mV with the "?" port open circuit. If I now connect a 50R load to the "?" port and take the reading again, I get a value of 3.7 mV. This tells me that the directivity of the bridge is:
20 LOG (57 / 3.7) = 23 dB (ish)
Now, that's a bit pants! I was hoping for at least 30dB. THe first thing I tried was changing the toroid in the transformer "T" - I remade it using a FT37-50 with 10 bifilar turns:
This change hasn't made any difference at all!
The theory of operation is that you would set your signal generator to the frequency required and then first measure the detector reading with the "?" port open and then repeat the measurement with the device under test connected to the "?" port like this:
Odd, Egh?
wires too long inside the box? Mine is point to point.
ReplyDeleteReplace the input wire from the coax centre connector with a short piece of shielded cable RG58/174/316 etc.. right up to the -43 ferrite.
72
Dom
Hi Dom
DeleteThanks for the suggestion; what toroid and what directivity do you get from yours?
Mark.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI know it's 3 years late, but here you go.
I built mine using a Fair-Rite FT37-43, parallel 100R 1% resistors, with a "Manhattan" pad for the R1/R2 midpoint, the rest being point to point wired.
I built a small enclosure using copper clads and kept the wiring as short as possible inside, a bit like so:
http://www.k8iqy.com/testequipment/returnlossbridge/returnlossbridge.htm
If I measured everything correctly, mine has a directivity of about 32dB for a 7MHz signal.