that PLL again

Not a problem at all. I never want to store WAV files anyway. Only thing is that then I'd have to delete them more frequently because I always hibernate my computers. Although it would take a very long time to overfill that RAM disk because sim runs always store to the same file name until you bump the rev level of your sim file. So one flush per week might suffice.

SSD is certainly on the top of my list for potential upgrades for this new PC once it gets here.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

The electronic signature pads don't care what you sign. A smiley face will work fine.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Of course I meant RAW files. Sorry.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Modern operating systems use spare ram as a disk cache, so the point is moot anyhow... unless...

Oh, you're using Windows. Nothing to see here, move along.

Good for you, I respect your "just do it" approach, very different from mine, I focus more on the process. Both kinds are needed.

If you're only planning to use it to drive a mixer/modulator, I suppose it won't bother you that the ADF4350 only outputs square waves. Nice to have such a wide VCO range, but it's no replacement for a DDS. I considered one of these as a general purpose RF signal generator, but...

It's going to be Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On a sunny day (Thu, 04 Dec 2014 07:23:15 -0800) it happened Joerg wrote in :

Yes, only time I did that was for repair in the old Philips K6? color TV chassis, PL802?? video output driver, you could buy a transistor with resistor on a tube socket to replace those. Power resistor, the big white cermic wirewounds...

On a sunny day (Fri, 05 Dec 2014 10:18:35 +1100) it happened Clifford Heath wrote in :

Na, the harmonics of 2.4 GHz (where I use it) are easy to filter out.

You can use a Raspberry Pi as signal generator from 150 kHz to 500 Mhz square wave out:

I sweeped my analog 10 MHz scope with it.

DDS is not so clean either at the high frequency end no?

Chip and PIN gets around that - the first transaction will fail with

99.97% probability (99.99% if the new card owner is honest). I can't remember when I last signed a credit card slip or a virtual one.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

Good choice since you get an XP license effectively thrown in. You might find the odd older program unsupported in the x64 environment or perhaps even more annoying that its installer is unsupported.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

On a sunny day (Fri, 05 Dec 2014 10:18:35 +1100) it happened Clifford Heath wrote in :

PS,

this is via the down mixer, the offset is from the E4000 tuner. Mixer is used way out of spec (factor 4 IIRC).

Nevertheless I see little noise around the carrier. This will probably do for ATV sat upload.

I miss all those video driver transistors. They keeled over like dominos when it comes to availability, especially after CRT televisions fell out of favor.

I remember the ones with "overload spring release" that can spit a molten solder ball up in the air. You had to wear eye protection when working on such a set.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

That is one of the many reasons why I shunned any offer with Windows 8 only. I must be able to use legacy software because for some jobs that's all there will ever be. It is amazing how blissfully unaware the stores are, they lose a ton of sales because of Windows 8. I immediately stopped looking any deeper into an offer when I saw that in the specs and moved on.

Aside from the XP license Dell also ships an install disk for Windows

8.1. But that will likely end up as a beer coaster.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

But now we have cool mesfets and phemts and GaN transistors.

Some of the horizontal-output transistors were cool, too. Their c-b doping profiles made some of them into radical, heat-sinkable, drift-step-recovery diodes.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Can you point me to a reference for this? I think I still have a few bags of surplus HOTs in my big Sterilite storage box of spare transistors... if some of them can be strongarmed into use in a fast pulse generator it'd be neat!

I discovered the effect in transistor c-b junctions, so there's no reference! The original DSRD thing was discovered by Grehkov, who used selected power rectifier diodes.

The ancient HP 1700-series sampling scopes used short-duration forward bias to improve the reverse recovery time of the SRDs; I think that predates Grehkov.

I found some Fairchild parts that were dynamite. FJAF6810, as I recall.

Driving them to do this is pretty radical. Apply +48 volts to the c-b junction and wait maybe 200 ns for the current to ramp up to +100 amps. Then reverse-bias from 400 volts, through a small inductor. The current goes to -100 amps and then the junction opens up. Twang.

Google drift step-recovery diode

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On a sunny day (Fri, 05 Dec 2014 12:34:02 -0800) it happened Joerg wrote in :

Yes, I remember those too, well I never was around when one popped. Got them popped for repair...

These resistors were on pin 4 and 5 of the noval socket, and replaced the heater. The P series was 300 mA all in series (in fact 2 groups in parallel maybe) on at that time 220V AC mains. So they had to subsitute a resistor for the heater to keep the other tubes alight,

Ebay still has those:

Interesting. The screw for heat sinking is a bit borderline in length. Looks like they used two transistors and some more small resistors.

Not 100% compatible though, you could not clandestinely use G3 for something because is isn't connected to anything in the transistor version. But I guess this did the job in a TV set.

The price isn't bad, considering that this one won't wear out. Although tubes aren't as bad as some say they are. Our Hammond organ from 1961 still has the first set and works fine. At the previous (and first) owner they often didn't turn it off for days.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

True. Also RF-BJTs with transition frequencies of tens of GHz that cost less than 50 cents. I designed a TDR around those and it really rocks. Would not have been possible 30 years ago. Back then the BFS17 was pretty much it unless you were willing to pay through the nose.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/