Intro to RF - EEs Talk Tech Electrical Engineering Podcast #21

RF designs, radio, GPS, RADAR, and RF terms you need to know! Click to subscribe! ► http://bit.ly/Scopes_Sub ◄ Links & agenda ↓↓↓

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00:25 Daniel stole Phil’s joke RF stands for radio frequency

00:40 Phil Gresock was an RF application engineer

1:15 Everything is time domain, but a lot of RF testing tools end up being frequency domain oriented

2:15 Think about radio. The tall radio tower isn’t actually an antenna but something to elevate the antenna.

3:50 Check out the FCC spectrum allocation chart https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf

4:10 RF communication is useful when we want to communicate and it doesn’t make sense to run a cable to that device

4:50 When you tune your radio into a frequency, you are tuning to a center frequency. The center frequency is then down converted into the audible range

6:30 Check out Mike’s blog on how signal modulation works: https://community.keysight.com/community/keysight-blogs/oscilloscopes/blog/2017/06/20/how-signal-modulation-works

7:00 Communication is just one application. RADAR also is a very impactful RF application.

8:10 The principles between RF and DC or digital use models are very similar, but the nomenclature tends to be different. Bandwidth for oscilloscopes means DC up to a frequency, but for RF it means the analysis bandwidth around a center frequency

9:22 Cellular and FCC allocation chart will talk about channels. Channel in the RF domain refers to frequency ranges, but in the DC domain it typically refers to an input

10:25 Basic RF block diagram: First, there’s an input from an FPGA or sensor. Then, that signal gets mixed with a local oscillator (LO). That then connects to a transmission medium, like a fiber optic cable or through the air. Cable TV is an RF signal that is cabled, not wireless. Then, the transmitted signal connects to an RF downcoverter, which is essentially just another mixer, and into a processing block.

13:50 Tesla created a remote control boat and pretended it was voice controlled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_control

15:30 Does the military arena influence consumer electronics, or does the consumer electronics industry influence the military technology?

16:00 GPS is a great example of military technology moving into consumer electronics

17:00 IoT (internet of things) is also driving a lot of the technology around small-scale smart devices

18:00 The ISM band is unregulated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

19:15 New router uses a regulated frequency and hops off the frequency when it’s being used for emergency communications

20:50 RADAR, how does i ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZlpOXjaxTI