On eBay, Amazon or some other website is possible to buy a development board with ADF5355 for a reasonable price. With these board is easy to make a signal generator up to 13.6Ghz. For frequency controlling is possible to use Arduino or similar microcontroller and on the internet are many “ready to use” codes. We are explored a few solutions from the internet:
On F6KBF web site is a very nice project described in French (under on web page is a short description in English). For control is used Arduino Uno and the author also describes the solution to decrease a phase noise.
PA0RWE uses an Arduino Nano and 2×16 LCD display.
DD1US also made a signal generator with a cheap Chinese ADF5355 board, but also he made few improvements. To reduce phase noise he focused especially on the various power supplies. He added also a switched filter module FB120-MPS which removes the harmonics.
G0MGX has also made a signal generator with ADF5355 and provides a few tips to make a code. He used Arduino Zero.
G4JNT offers info on how to control ADF5355 with serial RS232 type interface.
Seb Holzapfel made some experiments with the original board from Analog Devices.
How we see, phase noise on the Chinese ADF5355 board is a common problem. GM8BJF describes how to make improvements.
On OZ2M web pages is a description how to use ADF5355 (or similar chips) as a beacon. Very interesting, if you don’t have beacons in the near, or you need a personal beacon for making some of the tests.
On the internet is sure possible to find more projects with ADF5355 but we chose, in our opinion, the most interesting projects.
Photos: eBay
