Practical radio-frequency handbook

299 Pages·2007·9.638 MB·English

by  Ian Hickman

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Practical Radio-Frequency Handbook
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Practical Radio-Frequency
Handbook
Fourth edition
IAN HICKMAN
BSc (Hons), CEng, MIET, MIEEE
www.ianhickman.org.uk
AMSTERDAM (cid:127) BOSTON (cid:127) HEIDELBERG (cid:127) LONDON (cid:127) NEW YORK (cid:127) OXFORD
PARIS (cid:127) SAN DIEGO (cid:127) SAN FRANCISCO (cid:127) SINGAPORE (cid:127) SYDNEY (cid:127) TOKYO
Newnes is an imprint of Elsevier
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Newnes is an imprint of Elsevier
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
30 Corporate Drive, Burlington, MA 01803
First published 1993 as Newnes Practical RF Handbook
Second edition 1997
Reprinted 1999(twice), 2000
Third edition 2002
Reprinted 2004, 2005
Fourth edition 2007
Copyright ©1993, 1997, 2002, 2007, Ian Hickman. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
All rights reserved
The right of Ian Hickman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements xi
1 Passive components 1
Resistance and resistors 1
Capacitors 4
Inductors and transformers 6
2 Passive circuits 11
3 RF transmission lines 19
Transmission line operation at d.c. 19
Transmission line operation at r.f. 24
4 RF transformers 32
Introduction 32
Transformer basics 32
R.F. considerations 34
Baluns 40
Line transformers 46
5 Couplers, hybrids and directional couplers 49
6 Active components for RF uses 58
7 RF small-signal circuitry 76
8 Modulation and demodulation 87
9 Oscillators 105
10 RF power amplifiers 130
Safety hazards to be considered 130
First design decisions 131
Levellers, VSWR protection, RF routing switches 131
Starting the design 132
Low-pass filter design 132
Discrete PA stages 134
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vi Contents
11 Transmitters and receivers 156
12 Advanced architectures 171
13 Propagation 181
14 Antennas 192
15 Attenuators and equalizers 209
16 Measurements 214
Measurements on CW signals 214
Modulation measurements 215
Spectrum and network analysers 215
Other instruments 217
Appendix 1 Useful relationships 223
Appendix 2 S-Parameters 229
Appendix 3 Attenuators (pads) 232
Appendix 4 Universal resonance curve 234
Appendix 5 RF cables 235
Appendix 6 Wire gauges and related information 239
Appendix 7 Manufacturers of soft-ferrite and iron-powder cores 242
Appendix 8 Types of modulation – classification 243
Appendix 9 Quartz crystals 245
Appendix 10 Elliptic filters 247
Appendix 11 Screening 258
Appendix 12 Worldwide minimum external noise levels 267
Appendix 13 Frequency allocations and designations 270
Appendix 14 SRDs (Short Range Devices) 274
Index 277
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Preface
The Practical Radio-Frequency Handbook aims to live up to its title, as a useful vade-
mecum and companion for all who wish to extend their familiarity with RF technology. It
is hoped that it will prove of use to practising electronic engineers who wish to move into
the RF design area, or who have recently done so, and to engineers, technicians, amateur
radio enthusiasts, electronics hobbyists and all with an interest in electronics applied to
radio frequency communications. From this, you will see that it is not intended to be a text-
book in any shape or form. Nothing would have been easier than to fill it up with lengthy
derivations of formulae, but readers requiring to find these should look elsewhere. Where
required, formulae will be found simply stated: they are there to be used, not derived.
I have naturally concentrated on current technology but have tried to add a little interest
and colour by referring to earlier developments by way of background information, where
this was thought appropriate, despite the pressure on space. This pressure has meant that,
given the very wide scope of the book (it covers devices, circuits, equipment, systems,
radio propagation and external noise), some topics have had to be covered rather more
briefly than I had originally planned. However, to assist the reader requiring more infor-
mation on any given topic, useful references for further reading are included at the end of
most chapters. The inclusion of descriptions of earlier developments is by no means a
waste of precious space for, in addition to adding interest, these earlier techniques have a
way of reappearing from time to time – especially in the current climate of deregulation. A
good example of this is the super-regenerative receiver, which appeared long before the
Second World War, did sterling service during that conflict, but was subsequently buried
as a has-been: it is now reappearing in highly price-sensitive short-range applications such
as remote garage door openers and central locking controllers.
Good RF engineers are currently at a premium, and I suspect that they always will be.
The reason is partly at least to be found in the scant coverage which the topic receives in
university and college courses. It is simply so much easier to teach digital topics, which
furthermore – due to the rapid advances being made in the technology – have long
seemed the glamorous end of the business. However, the real world is analogue, and com-
municating information, either in analogue or digital form, at a distance and without
wires, requires the use of electromagnetic radiation. This may be RF, microwave, milli-
metre wave or optical and there is a whole technology associated with each. This book
deals just with the RF portion of the spectrum, which in earlier editions was taken to mean
the range up to 1000MHz. Frequencies beyond this were traditionally taken as the pre-
serve of microwave engineers (sometimes, rather unfairly, called ‘plumbers’), involving
waveguides, cavity resonators and the like. But with the enormous strides in technology
in recent years, particularly in miniaturized surface mount components and high fre-
quency transistors, the domain of conventional printed circuit techniques, used at VHF
and UHF, has been extended to the areas of 1.5GHz (SOLAS, safety of life at sea, GPS
and Glonas, global positioning systems), 2GHz (PCS and DCS for mobile phones) and
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viii Preface
beyond (Bluetooth and other technologies in the 2.54GHz ISM band for short range wire-
less data links). In this context, an interesting and important development is the shift of
large areas of RF design, away from the circuit design team at, e.g. a mobile phone man-
ufacturer’s laboratory, to the development facilities of integrated circuit manufacturers.
Thus ASICs – application specific integrated circuits – are no longer confined to the digi-
tal field. Firms such as Analog Devices, Maxim, Philips and others are steadily introduc-
ing a stream of new products integrating more and more of the receive/transmit front end
for mobile phones and the corresponding base stations. Dual band ICs, for both 900MHz
and 1800MHz bands (GSM and DCS), have appeared, and now also 3G devices – for the
third generation of mobile phones. The necessary matching passive components are also
widely available, such as SAW and BAW (surface acoustic- and bulk acoustic-wave) filters
from manufacturers such as EPCOS (formerly Siemens/Matsushita Components), Fujitsu,
Murata and others.
Due to recent developments, the whole frequency range, from a few kHz up to around
6GHz is used for an enormous variety of services, including sound broadcasting and tele-
vision, commercial, professional, government and military communications of all kinds,
telemetry and telecontrol, radio telex and facsimile and amateur radio. There are specialized
applications, such as short-range communications and control (e.g. radio microphones,
garage door openers) whilst increasingly, RF techniques are involved in non-wireless appli-
cations. Examples are wide band cable modems, and the transmission of data with clock
frequencies into the GHz range, over fibre optic cables using the FDDI (Fibre-optic digital
data interchange) standard. There are also a number of more sinister applications such as
ESM, ECM and ECCM (electronic surveillance measures, e.g. eavesdropping; electronic
counter measures, e.g. exploitation and jamming; and electronic counter measures, e.g.
jamming resistant radios using frequency hopping or direct sequence spread spectrum).
Indeed, the pressure on spectrum space has never been greater than it is now and it is
people with a knowledge of RF who have to design, produce, maintain and use equipment
capable of working in this crowded environment. It is hoped that this book will prove use-
ful to those engaged in these tasks.
It should be noted that whilst some of the circuits shown indicate component values,
this work is not intended as a ‘cookbook’ of ready-made hand-me-down RF circuits, but
rather as an introduction to the general principles and techniques of the design and oper-
ation of RF circuitry and equipment.
This fourth edition has a number of minor additions, deletions and corrections
throughout, and substantial new material has been added to Chapters 3 and 12. But the
main change concerns the addition of a new Chapter 11. This deals with the advanced
architectures, including IF (intermediate frequency) signal processing techniques in
superheterodyne receivers, and other related topics.
Also important is the upgrading of Appendix 13, which gives details of frequency allo-
cations. Annexe 1 covers the documents defining UK frequency allocations. Complete
copies and further information may be obtained from the address given in the appendix.
Annexe 2 likewise gives brief details of frequency allocations in the USA. Appendix 14
gives information relating to low power, short range radio devices. These represent an
explosive area of growth in recent years, for a number of reasons. First, many of these
devices require no licence – a great convenience to the end user – although naturally the
manufacturer must ensure that such a device meets the applicable specification. Second,
due to the very limited range, frequencies can be re-used almost without limit, in a way
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Preface ix
not possible in, for example, broadcast applications, or even in PMR (private mobile
radio). Details of the relevant specifications are found in Appendix 14.
It is hoped that the additions and alterations incorporated in this fourth edition will
make the work even more useful to all with an interest in RF technology. Those working
in the field professionally include IC designers, circuit and module engineers, equipment
engineers and system engineers. IC design is a very specialized area and is consequently
not covered in this book. Whilst it is hoped that readers will gain a useful appreciation of
RF systems engineering, the main emphasis of the book will be of greatest use to those
with an interest in circuit, module and equipment engineering.
Ian Hickman