Friday 9 August 2013

GHz frequency counter ready

Finally I am ready with the construction of the frequency counter. Found some time to integrate the pre-scaler, stick some labels on the front and assemble the housing. The counter has a BNC and SMA connector as entrance. As you might have read the housing comes from an old PC PSU which I painted gray (front) and black (top). First trials are succesfull.
The final result looks as follows:



I found the counter is able to measure frequencies in the GHz range. The counter was tested with a QRP ATV transmitter  and I saw that it indicated 1.257 GHz, exactly the working frequency of the transmitter.



The design of the pre-scaler can be found on my second posting on this blog. The picture above shows the prescaler with MB506 chip on the unetched pcb on the left hand side of the housing. The prescaler is built using the "dead-bug method".

The main design of this counter comes from India. Have a look here:

 http://www.hamradio.in/circuits/freq_counter_lcd.php 

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