R. A. Wood Associates QuickNews

• Wide Freq bandwidths ~DC-3GHz
• Uses New R.A.Wood Associates designed amplifiers with new 50% smaller M06 amplifier packages
• Used as part of a Subsystem, deployed on Navy vessels
• 14 built and delivered on time
• Provides 9 output ports for downstream equipment

We haven't posted in a while. It's because we've been crazy busy. Our newest product, the RCT0017 WB Tuner and Quad Converter, has been under development over the past 2 years, and is now available. We've designed this from the ground up to meet state of the art high input compression point, low phase noise, fast tuning speed, wide dynamic range, and wide instantaneous bandwidth requirements. A quick overview of the specifications:

• Frequency Coverage: 2-18 GHz
• First IF’s: 2.2-3.8 GHz, 3.8-5.3 GHz, available simultaneously
• Second IF’s: 4 outputs at 750 MHz, 375 MHz wide, providing 1.5 GHz instantaneous bandwidth across the First IF’s
• Input 1 dB Compression Point: >+6 dBm
• Noise Figure: 21 dB
• Input Dynamic Range: -60 to +2 dBm
• Gain: 10 dB average
• Tuning Speed: <1 uSec
• Frequency Step Size: 375 MHz
• Phase Noise: -150 dBc/Hz @ 10-20 MHz Offset
• Form Factor: VME 6U 2 Slot Design
• Control and Status: VME A24 D32
• Designed to follow an Low Noise Front End with Approximately 30 dB ENR
• Designed to drive 1 GHz Digitizers linearly up to +12 dBm

A brief data sheet can be downloaded from this link

We've delivered the third Electronics Support Switching Uint (ESSU) for one of our customers (ahead of schedule!). This was another set of hardware slated to to be installed on a Navy Vessel. The ESSU is shown here with the cover removed, looking from the back. All RF components are mounted on both sides of a center RF plate. Shown are RF amplfiers, equalizers, attenuators, RF switches, cabling, FPGA card, and rear connectors (21 RF connectors, 12 video/75 ohm connectors, Audio, Power).

For additional information, please visit our ESSU information page.

R. A. Wood Associates has been awarded a contract from Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Crane Division. The contract involves designing and delivering an automated test rack consisting of:

• A 40U rack with rack mount PC, work table, LCD monitor, GPIB controller cards,
• A state of the art Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) with 10 port extension
• A PXI chassis with PXI cards providing thermocouple temperature measurement, serial ports, 2 X 96 digital I/O signals
• A custom designed RF Load Box for testing up to eight transmitter/receiver modules, capable of providing 50 Watts of RF power
• Custom designed software for controlling the Load Box and the VNA equipment

We are fortunate to be able to work with Viewpoint Systems on this contract.

This contract was won on a competitive bid, and our solution was selected out of many other submissions. We are very excited about the opportunity to work with NSWC Crane Division!

• 5 KHz to 2.0 GHz
• 0.5 to 8.0 GHz
• 1.0 to 8.0 GHz
• 1.0 to 2.0 GHz
• 2.0 to 4.0 GHz
• 4.0 to 8.0 GHz
• 4.5 to 12.5 GHz
• 4.0 to 18.0 GHz
• 8.0 to 18.0 GHz

R. A. Wood Associates designed, built, tested, and delivered 2 Electronics Support Switching Units (ESSU) to one of our customers. This was another set of hardware slated to to be installed on a Navy Vessel. The ESSU was designed to be installed between the front end (Antennas, RF amplification switching, filtering) and back end (RF processing) of a complex RF/Microwave system. The purpose of the ESSU was to allow a second front end (RF Subsystem 2) to be switched into the same back end, to make use of the RF signal processing in the back end.

• Wideband RF/Microwave amplifiers
• Our Extreme BW RF amplifier was used in this design for the low frequency, wide bandwidth RF path
• Equalizers and attenuators to align the RF paths
• Some vendor purchased equalizers were used
• R. A. Wood Associates equalizers were also used where vendor equalizers were not available
• Terminated mechanical RF switches (50 ohms)
• Terminated mechanical RF switches (75 ohms)
• HDRFI external RF interface to save RF connector space
• DC power conditioning
• FPGA card to control switches and provide Built-in-test (BIT) status
• LED displays for BIT and switching status
• Custom designed audio switching board

We've taken a challenge and come out on top again! We've developed an Extreme BW RF Amplifier, providing ~22 dB gain, and high dynamic range (~36 dBm Third Order Output Intercept Point) over the frequency band of 5 KHz to 2 GHz. An integrated RF package of 1.9" L X 1.3" W X 0.4" H was developed for the Extreme BW RF Amplifier and also included:

• DC filter to suppress power supply ripple and noise
• An input Equalizer where you can specify the full band slope desired
• An output Resistive Power Divider for providing 2 equal RF outputs

The input Equalizer and output Power Divider can be "zeroed out" if not needed. The input Equalizer can be used to compensate for the amplifier slope and/or passive loss slopes. We can provide a variety of RF slopes in the input Equalizer. More information is available from our Extreme BW RF Amplifier page. Let us know if you are interested in this product line! Bob Wood.

On September 15 2006, R. A. Wood Associates delivered the first two of 15 complete Integrated RF Test Racks. The Integrated RF Test Rack provided a complete solution for complete automated testing of 7 RF/Digital modules. All equipment was controlled through GPIB interfaces. All automated test software was written in National Instruments LabVIEW by R. A. Wood Associates. RFSpecTest was used in "script" mode to perform most of the RF measurements. The rack consisted of:

• 2 Signal Generators (one for RF signals, one for LO signals)
• 1 Spectrum Analyzer (for measuring RF signal amplitudes and frequencies)
• 1 Multimeter (for monitoring resistances and voltages at various points on the modules)
• 3 Power Supplies (for providing DC power to the modules under test)
• A rack mount PC with GPIB and Digital I/O cards, loaded with software for controlling test equipment and reporting test results
• A rack mount interruptible power supply (UPS)
• R. A. Wood Associates Automated RF Test Fixture
• Laser Bar Code Reader (for reading and automatic entry of module serial numbers)
• A 19" Flat Panel Display (mounted on movable monitor arm)
• Keyboard and Mouse in a slide-out ergonomic tray

The full rack was designed to be a comfortable testing environment, as well as easy to maintain. Equipment is easy to remove if needed with minimal interference to other equipment.

More information about the Integrated RF Test Rack is available from this link.