Racal-dana Instruments Limited

Malcolm F Morgan

Peter P Connell

A frequency synthesizer described is made up of cascaded stages each receiving a 10 MHz reference. The first stage has a multiplier producing harmonics in the range 200 to 290 MHz, and any one can be selected by a controllable bandpass filter. A divide by 100 divider feeds an output variable in 100 KHz steps in the range 2 to 2.9 MHz to the next stage. This stage has a multiplier and a bandpass filter which can be set to produce an output variable in 10 MHz steps between 180 and 270 MHz. A divide by ten divider feeds a frequency in the range 18 to 27 MHz into a phase-locked loop also receiving the output from the first stage, so as to set a VCO to produce an output which, after division by a divide by ten divider is variable in 10 KHz steps in the range 2 to 2.9 MHz. Four further stages operate similarly, so that the fourth produces an output variable in 1 MHz steps between 2 and 2.999999 MHz. The seventh or final stage produces an output variable between 20 and 30 MHz in 1 Hz steps. The multipliers and bandpass filters in each stage produce much less noise than would phase-locked loops used for multiplication purposes, and are also more rapidly settable.

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High Wycombe, United Kingdom

Malcolm F Morgan