[NLRS] New hardware

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

In the Novenber 2011 Microwaves and RF magazine (www.MWRF.com) on page 
85, Communication Concepts, Inc says in an advertisement that they will 
soon have a Freescale 2m 1KW amplifier, probably kit or assembled, like 
many of their products based on Motorola applications notes and 
engineering bulletins from years past.

In an article beginning on page 90, Ulrich Rohde tells about a new 
patented VCXO circuit with better phase noise in the 100 MHz region.

On page 108, Southwest Microwave offers coaxial pins that fit in place 
of the replaceable size 20 pins in a type D or circular MIL connector.

On page 72, an article tells about using high speed ECL logic as mixers, 
frequency multipliers, samplers, and spectrum generators. Suppliers 
include On, Inphi, and Hittite with type D's available up to a 60 GHz 
toggle rate. Part of the speed of ECL comes from avoiding saturation, so 
if biased on a signal input the devices are kind of linear.

On page 56, an article on a CMOS LNA design claims 3.9 dB is LOW NF for 
the 2.1 to 7 GHz range and that's broad band. Supply voltage is 0.8 volts.

On page 97, its reported that the TGA2572 carrier-mounted GaN amplifier 
module from TriQuint Semiconductor measures only 3.5 x 5.9 x 0.1 mm but 
puts out 20 watts power from 14 to 16 GHz with 23 dB gain and 30% power 
added efficiency. Now if there was a 10 GHz version...

In the same article, maybe CAP wireless has a 2 to 20 GHz 15 watt 
saturated output PA, 12 watts (maybe) at 1 dB compression. The article 
is not clear about the power output units, but it combines several 
amplifier modules and has 15% efficiency while drawing 10 amps at 10 
volts with 48 dB gain. Its 17.08 x 9.93 x 5.81 inches.

Miteq is reported in the same article to supply TWT amps yet. Prices not 
shown.

Last I looked GaN devices were approaching a kilobuck each for L band 
devices.

We can wish.

73, Jerry, K0CQ