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A project log for PB121

A project to replace the Uniden PB121, PB112 boards with modern counterparts to revive dead radios and overcome mcu limitations.

david-l-norrisDavid L Norris 06/12/2017 at 19:010 Comments

Pardon the lack of update. I intended to have a working VCO and LO by now. I decided to switch to the SI5351 since it is both cheaper and much more functional than the AD9850. The SI5351 can generate 3 or 8 clocks depending on the physical package size you select. I am going to try to do everything with 3 clocks. This should be easy. This also means that the LO and VCO are both frequency agile. The LO is normally fixed at 10.240 MHz. Shifting that around slightly along with the VCO might be interesting to experiment with. Also, IF Shift may be possible to implement in software this way.

As such, I ordered a SI5351 from Amazon to save shipping cost. The package arrived mislabelled. There was an Amazon inventory sticker over the Adafruit sticker. Amazon sticker indicated it was a 2045 but the Adafruit one showed it was really a lithium battery charger. In hindsight, I probably should have kept it and used it for memory backup. But I did the honorable thing and returned it.

And ordered a new one. Which arrived on Sunday. Absolutely demolished. Looks like it was caught under a belt. The killer is that the destroyed part was inside of a sealed Amazon inspection bag. So Amazon picked up a few of the bits of the shredded board, stuffed them in a bag, printed a new envelope and just called it good? Weird. So, fool me twice, I ordered another from Amazon. Dernit. Because shipping from anywhere else costs a mint compared to the cost of this board. Which is good for us because it means the board is cheap. ;)

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