A Phase Locked Loop based signal generator for LH through to low VHF
A most unsuccessful project.
How not to design a PLL.




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This project like far too many of the things I bite off, could not be chewed. I wanted a phase locked loop controlled signal generator. It was to have a rotary encoder for programming, a controlled output from 10kHz to 60Mhz. Frequency to be controlled in 100Hz steps and a digital display  whose readout was calibrated to directly read out the frequency. Use of MECL for the high speed logic would guarantee success!


The principal of operation.
A fixed frequency down counter generates a fixed phase reference clock. The refererance clock was to be 100Hz. (big mistake)  A rotary shaft encoder generates two out-of-phase pulse trains, and a bit of sequential logic figures out the direction and provides an up cound and a down count train suitable of 74192 programmable decade counters.  The output of this counter is added with binary 4 bit adders to generate the calibration offset. The output of the decade counters (with offset) is used to set the divider down count for the programmable vco divider. The output of this programmable down counter is compared with the phase referance clock with an MC12040 ECL phase comparator.  The phase comparator output feeds an integrating first order filter which controls an MC1648  MECL3  VCO which runs at VHF.   The output of this VHF oscillator was to feed a mixer to be downconverted to the intended HF tuning range.  A VHF oscillator was chosen because the entire tuning range could be achieved without band switching.  At this point, more experienced engineers will realise that what I was attempting was  impossible in practice, no matter how appealing the simple PLL block diagram model at first appears to be.

What I got for my trouble.

I got a very stable ,fully programmable, broadband random noise source!
Funnily enough, occasionally the loop would actually lock up and the vco output would have a half power line width of about a megahertz, not much point then in having 100Hz increments!

What went wrong.


Is this project salvageable ?

I think not, certainly not in its current form.
However, if an infinite amount of time was to be available then, the first VCO divider would be part of the programmed chain, not a fixed modulus prescaler. The MC10136 is just barely capable of this. This would enable the reference clock to be 100Hz instead of 10Hz. There is half a chance a 100Hz clock could actually lock up!  Maybe 100Hz steps was too ambitious. One kilohertz steps is definately realiseable with some compromise, provided the low signal analog circuits were completely and correctly engineered. I really liked my programmable divider and am loathe to part with it. Doing it this way relieves me of the burden of microprocessor development and associated learning curve.

Things to do next time.  Learn HOW to design a second order loop. Use a pic or avr microcontroller to do the tedious system data management functions  and front panel management functions. Use a pulse swallowing prescaler. Analog electronics get their very own die cast box with seperate filtered power. Perhaps look at DDS synthesis after I understand it a bit better and, this is the big if, if DDS chips become available in Oz.



frequency display on main boardbcd thumbwheels for direct input
major design flaw. VCO on same boardECL gets quite hotrotary encoder for tuning input
with SMPSwire wrap card from old mainframedirect frequency readout