Pasternack Blog

A local oscillator (LO) is an electronic oscillator that generates a very narrow bandwidth signal, or tone, with high purity and stability for use in frequency conversion circuits and timing. As the performance of frequency conversion circuits and timing systems are often dependent on the LO performance, the quality of the oscillator and LO electronic ..

In many cases in RF/Microwave electronics it is advantageous to generate, modulate, receive, and demodulate communication and sensing signals at frequencies lower than the RF transmission/reception carrier frequency. The frequency difference between the modulation/demodulation (baseband) signals and the RF signals may be so vast, that multiple frequency conversion stages may be required. In these instances, ..

Circulators/isolators and switches are both commonly used in the RF front-end of communication and radar systems. The purpose of circulators/isolators and switches in RF front-ends is to enable the use of transmission and reception from the same antenna, duplexing. For instance, in a transmit/receive module (TRM) for an active antenna system (AAS) (phased array antenna), ..