University of Central Florida STARS Retrospective Theses and Dissertations 1973 A Solid State VHF Single Sideband Transmitter Ermi Roos University of Central Florida Part of the Engineering Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/rtd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Roos, Ermi, "A Solid State VHF Single Sideband Transmitter" (1973). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 71. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/rtd/71 A SOLID STATE VHF SINGLE SIDEBAND TRANSMI TTER Emf Roos B.S.E.E., Newark College of Engineering, 1966 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements 4 for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering in the Graduate Studies Program of Florida Technological University, 1973 .Orlando, Florida TAB= OF CONTENTS Page 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 2.0 PRINCIPLES OF ENVELOPE ELIMINATION AND RESTORATION SINGLE SIDEBAND 3.0 CIRCUIT DESCRIPTf ON 5.0 CONCLUSIONS APPENDIX A EFFECT OF FREQUENCY DIVISION OF THE - '. PKASE MUDUWITTON COMPONENT APPE3DIX B - EFFECT OF PHASE SHIFT IN THE ENVELOPE . FLIMINATION AND RESTOR4)TION SYSTEM I ,I APPENDIX C - LINEAX AMPLIFICATION WITH CLASS C BIBLIOGRAPHY LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1 Voltage and Current Waveforms of a Class C Amplifier Figure 2 Voltage and Current Waveforms of a Claas A Amplifier Figure 3 Basic Envelope Elimination and $&+&- , .:;;?$ &&&@lp-a;.%... --g Res'boration System Figure 4 Proposed Solid State VHF SSB Transmitter Figure 5 The Mef nzer Method Figure 6 SSB Generator Figure 7 Signal Processor Figure 8 Frequency Converter Figure 9 Modulator Figure 10 Transmitter vi Page Figure 11 Power Supply 44 Figure 12 Balanced Modulator Output Test Setup Figure 13 Frequency Spectrum of Balanoed Modula$or -. Figure 14 Frequency Response Test Setup Figure 15 ~odulatorFrequency Response Figure 16 Transmitter AM Operation Test Setup Figure 17 Transmitter Envelope for Single Tone Modulation Figure 18 SSB Generator Output Test Setup Figure 19 Frequency Spectrum of SSB Generator Output Figure 20 Frequency Spectrum of Limiter Output vii Page Figure 21 Frequency Conver"t;er Output Test Setup Figure 22 Frequency Spectrum of Transmitter output Figure A1 Phasor Representation of AM ( Single-Tone ~odulation) Figure A2 Phasor Representation of DSB-SC (single-Tone ~odulation) Figure A3 Phasor Representation of SSB and mPseudo-Carrierw (Two-Tone Modulation) Figure A4 Phase Modulation Component of SSB (Two-Tone ~odulation) Figure A5 Phase Shift of SSB Phase ModuLation Component ( Two-Tone adulation) Figure ~6 Frequency Spectrum of the Phase Modulation Component viii Page Figure A7 waveform of the Frequency Divider Output Figure A8 Frequency Spectrum of Frequency Divider Output Figure B1 Multiplication of RF and AF Components 1.0 INTRODUCTION Single sideband (SSB) is a very old method of radio co-ni- caei6nsand several decades of experimentation have resulted in a standard reliable method of generating SSB power. This is the cLas~ical~~filte~*method where a balanced modulator suppresses the AM carrier, a bandpass filter selects the de- sired sideband, a mixer selects the desired transmitter fre- quency, and a linear amplifier devezops the required trans- The earliest transmitters glade in , - mitter power. SSB were \ this manner, as well as the most recent one@. This method of generating SSB has the undesired feature that high level sideband power cannot be generated directly, such as with AM, but must be developed with successive linear anplification. Linear amplifiers have low efficiency, are very susceptible to self-oscillation, and tend to generate intermodulation products, If transistors are used, the de- vices tend to go into "second breakdownw when they are for- ward biased sufficiently for good linearity. The *'second breakdownw effect becomes mcm severe with increasing fre-' quency, making the design of transistorized VHF SSB trans- mitters difficult. A few methods of generating SS$ power directly. have been developed, but none :.ha.sbeen very widely used. .One is the "phasingM method, where SSB power may be generaeed in a fin- \I al balanced modulator, Such a scheme would be practical on- I I ly in a single frequency transmitter, because the carrier phase shift network must be set as close to 90 degrees as possible, and networks that would track the carrier frequency would be difficult to adjust, Practical @@phasingMtrans- mitters, in fact, use mixers and linear amplifiers. The phas- ing circuit is simply used as a low-level single frequency SSB source. It is used as a means of eliminating the need * for a bandpass filter with a high skirt factor, which was dif- ficult and expensive to make years ago. An interesting, but almost unknown, method of generating dir- ect ssB was developed by 0 .G. Villard in 1948, Villard took advantage of the fact that a narrowband phase modulated signal has sidebands that are identical to those of AM, but the carrier signal is 90 degrees out of phase with that of AM. By mixing a signal that is 90 degrees out of phase with the audio signal , with a signal that is phase modulated by the audio signal, one of the sidebands is suppressed. Unfortu- nately, the carrier remains; and one of the reasons for using SSB is to eliminate the need for generating carrier power. What is unique about Villardts method is that the mixing my be '0. G. Villard., nComposite Amplitude and Phase Modulation, E-lectronics, November, 1948, pp, 86-89. done by amplitude modulating a class C amplifier, The transmitter described in this paper uses a similar method of generating SSB power, In 1952, Leonard R. Kahn wrote a paper describing the prin- ciples of amplifying SSB by envelope elimination and restor- ation, With this scheme, - a low-level SSB signal is infin- itely limited, leaving only a phase modulated signal, The phase modulated signal is amplified to a high level wlth class C amplifiers. A portion of the original SSB signal is en- velope detected, and the detector output is applied to an AM modulator that modulates the last c1aas.C amplifier. The class C amplifier output is a reproduction of the original SSB signal. The object of this paper is to demonstrate that the Kahn meth- od provides a practical means of designing a solid-state VHF SSB transmitter, This method exchanges increased complexity in low-level circuits for increased efficiency and ease of design and adjustment of the final-power amplifier. Al- though Kahnos transmitter has not been popular in the past, it will be argued here that the relative cost between low- - '~eonard R . Kahn, "Single Sideband Transmission by Envelope Elimination and Restoration," Proceedings of the I,R,E., July, 1952, pp, 803-806. 4 level integrated circuits and high-level RF transistors jus- tifies the use of complex low-level circuits, and simple RF power circuits, The results of testing an actual envelope elimination and restoration transmitter will be described here. Since a standard VHF transmitter of comparable performance was not designed, striot comparisons between the two methods cannot be made. Nevertheless, the practicality of the envelope elimination and. restoration technique will be demonstrated. 2.0 PRINCIPLES OF ENVELOPE ELIMINATION AND RESTOMTION SINGLE SIDBAND 2.1 Basic Theory The generation of SSB power by envelope elimination and res- toration is based upon the fact that any continuous wave mod- ulated signal may be expressed as a product of the detected signal envelope and s phase modulation Component. be expressed by the equation below, Where E(t) is the envelope function,wb is the carrier fre- : quency, $(a) is the phase function, and cos [ + #(%)I is the carrier, or phase modulation component. By separat- .ing the envelope function from the phase modulation compon- ent, and amplif'ying the two signals separately, it is pos- sible to recombine the signals in a high power mixer,and re- produce the original composite signal, The phase modulation component in ~~uation1 may be isol- ated by multiplying f (t) by the inverse of the envelope function, which is ~(t)cos C kt + #(t)] E(t) In practice, multiplication by the inverse of the envelope component is accomplished with a zer~-croesing detector, or an infinite limiter. fpM(t). is amplified to the desired level' using class C awpUfters, and then multiplied by a. signal pro-. portional to the envelope function, E(%), to restore the 1 original signal, (1). E(C) is obtained by AM detecting the continuous-wave modulated signal. Multiplication of two signals -is usually done by the use of a balanoed moduit%tor, but, in this case, a standard AM mod- ulator is sufficient. This is because ~(t)contains a DC component that prevents negative excursions of ~(t),A class C amplifier, which is suitable for amplifying fpM(t ) , may then also be used for multiplying E(t) with fpM(t). Accurate restoration of the original signal depends upon correctly preserving the amplitude and time relationships of ~(t)and fpM(t). Any errors in either signal will cause distortion in the restored. signal, 2.2 Linear and Nonlinear RF Amplifiers If an RF signal has no time-varying envelope, it may be .amp- lified without distortion by either linear or nonlinear , amp- lifiers. This is because all of the distortion products pro- duced by nonlinearity will be centered around the harmonics of the carrier frequency, and they may easily be filtered out by conventional power amplifier tuned circuits. If a signal has an envelope, however, nonlinear amplifier gain will cause the envelope to amplitude modulate the desired signal, resulting in distortion products within the passband of the desired signal.