Hal Murray wrote:
bruce.griffi...@xtra.co.nz said:
If there is no electronic tuning available one can use a DDS based
synthesiser to produce a corrected output frequency. However close in spurs
will be problematic unless one use a couple of simple mix and divide stages
or resorts to a Diophantine synthesiser using phase noise truncation spur
free output frequencies from the DDS chip(s).
I think I understand the classic spurs from a DDS.
I wasn't familiar with Diophantine techniques. Google found this
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijno/2008/416958.html
which is readable at my level.
But I don't think I understand the big picture. The example numbers they
give involve mixing 500 Hz with 10 MHz. Assuming I want the sum, how do I
get rid of the difference? It's going to be a good strong signal, as strong
as the one I want. I think anything that leaks through the filter into the
next mixer is likely to make mirror sidebands that are right where we don't
want them.
Why is that going to be easier to get rid of than traditional spurs?
A DDS can generate some close in spurs that are very close to the
desired frequency and thus are difficult to filter even with a narrow
band PLL as the spur offset and amplitude varies with the DDS output
frequency in a very complex way.
A very narrow PLL requires a VCO with good short (for averaging times up
to the inverse PLL bandwidth) term stability.
However if the offset is 500Hz its relatively easy to filter out the
unwanted sum (or difference) frequency with a PLL using a VCO with good
short term stability for averaging times of a few tens of millisec. The
rejection can be improved by using an SSB mixer.
N.B. the author of the paper (and his web page) that you found has
vanished without trace.
It turns out that the Diophantine frequency synthesis technique was
patented (US Patent 5267182) some 17 years ago.
His literature search for previous papers/patents cant have been very
effective/extensive.
Fortunately I managed to download all of his papers before they vanished
along with the web page.
Alternatively if one implements the DDS in an FPGA its possible to
virtually eliminate such spurs using a modified algorithm. However this
requires an external DAC to produce the required output.
Got a URL? What's magic about a FPGA? Why don't traditional DDS chips use
that modified algorithm?
http://www.sdrforum.org/pages/sdr06/sdr06_papers/1.3/1.3-01.pdf
(thanks to Bob Camp for finding this gem)
There's nothing magic about an FPGA, its merely a convenient way of
implementing the improved algorithm.
There's no way to implement it with a traditional DDS chip as the
digital section needs to be extensively modified.
DDS chips do not use it because it has only recently been devised.
Bruce
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