I once had an HP RF generator with 12 digit display and I made a test set using hpib serial port to program it
The spectral purity was exceptionally high due to some brilliant dual PLL loops HP invented in the 70's that made it work like a spectrum analyzer LO and mixer that up converts the entire range then down. Then I used the HP precision Time Interval counter with similar high resolution for measuring RF cycle to cycle phase shift for our 1st Satellite transmitter to go uplink to GOES #1 . Specs on freq error within 1ms of power up were very tight and tighter after 3ms and phase shift deviation was very tight.
The reward was the 1st photo of earth from Washington DC's GOES Sat Com certification lab or was it the Tiros N Sat test set? anyways it was Circa '77 .. forgive my memory.. Its round here somewhere...
Bill Whitehead did the design of he Tx, and I programmed the automated testset one afternoon on an HP desktop calculator HP9825 in HPBasic with HP RF testers with ridiculously high resolution and phase stability.
The spectral purity was exceptionally high due to some brilliant dual PLL loops HP invented in the 70's that made it work like a spectrum analyzer LO and mixer that up converts the entire range then down. Then I used the HP precision Time Interval counter with similar high resolution for measuring RF cycle to cycle phase shift for our 1st Satellite transmitter to go uplink to GOES #1 . Specs on freq error within 1ms of power up were very tight and tighter after 3ms and phase shift deviation was very tight.
The reward was the 1st photo of earth from Washington DC's GOES Sat Com certification lab or was it the Tiros N Sat test set? anyways it was Circa '77 .. forgive my memory.. Its round here somewhere...
Bill Whitehead did the design of he Tx, and I programmed the automated testset one afternoon on an HP desktop calculator HP9825 in HPBasic with HP RF testers with ridiculously high resolution and phase stability.
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