MEMORANDUM

To : Dave Michelson

From : EECE 380 Team L2D8

Date : 31 March 2014

Subject : Project 2 Weekly Memo 8

INTRODUCTION

This memo outlines the progress made during the last week before the project.

PROGRESS

Hardware

With the new capacitor stocks, we finished adjusting the bandwidth of our crystal filters, ~1kHz and ~3kHz approximately.

When the RF signal is passed through the crystal ladder, there was approximately a 23 dBm loss. Therefore, we chose to build a cascode which amplifies the signal by approximately 20 dBm to compensate for the loss. The cascode is chosen due to its ability to isolate both the input and output stages, high gain and slightly wider bandwidth compared to the standard common emitter amplfier.

We also built a simple peak detector which has a stable output without any ripple. This allows for a clean input into myDAQ so that the readings are more accurate.

Software

We managed to display the xy graph in Labview as well reading the input voltage. There is also a cursor on the display that displays the values.

GOALS  FOR NEXT WEEK

1. Test the whole circuit with the RF Amplifier, Mixer, VCO, Attenuator, switch and software

2. Start designing the PCB Board

3. Include the frequency modulation Beta into Labview.

To: David G Michelson

From: EECE 380 Team L2D8

Date: March 23 2014

Subject: Project 2 Weekly Memo 7

This memo outlines the progress made this week as well as goals for next week.

Progress

The group has identify the key parts of the project and assigned jobs to each group members.

2 members are working on the software while the other 3 are working on the hardware.

Hardware

We have built the peak detector as well as the two resolution bandwidth filters. Both resolution bandwidth filters has a centre frequency of 8Mhz. However, the bandwidth of the bandwidth filter is not yet adjusted because the capacitor stock ran out. We would continue with the adjustment in the following week after obtaining the appropriate capacitor values.

Besides that, we built an amplifier for the ramp generator because the maximum voltage output from the myDAQ is not enough to sweep through our local oscillator range from 78 Mhz to 98 Mhz.

Software

There has been no update to the software portion this week. All members were focusing on the hardware part of the project for now.

Goals for Next Week

1. Start building the transistor amplifiers

2. Assemble everything together

3. Test the circuit out with the software.

To : Dave Michelson

From :  EECE 380 Team L2D8

Date : 24 January 2014

Subject : Project 1 Weekly Memo 1

INTRODUCTION

This memo outlines the progress made during week 3 of the project as well as the problems faced.

PROGRESS

Email Sending

On the 22nd January, the teams were introduced to the overall outline of the email sending process through the satellite. We learnt to compile the code on the IAR workbench and to use QCT to upload the code to QUAKE. The debugging process is done by observing the events that were printed via the Logger port. After adding the group email to the ORBCOMM system, we attempt to send a message to the email via satellite. When we first load the unchanged DemoAppGSM code, we received no email. Therefore we attempted to debug it by checking the logger for the occurrence of important events using the printf statement. From there we discovered that the event which sends the message via ORBCOMM was not executed due to a condition in an if else statement. We then adjust the initial conditions in order for that part of the code to be executed. As a result an email with an att file attachment was received. We then proceed to initialize a char pointer for the message body as well as changing the ORBCOMM packet parameter to ORBCOMM message to get an email message instead of the attachment.

ADC

On the 24th January, we attempt to read the ADC voltage from a voltage divider through channel 0 on the logger. We modified the DemoAppsADC to read from channel 0. Initially, the voltage printed out remained constant even though the source voltage was varied. After checking the timestamp for the file loaded, we realize the file loaded was last year’s file and that the binary file we compiled was on another directory. After that we managed to get changing voltages but it was different than the actual voltage by a large margin. Therefore, we changed the conversion factor in the code to the right conversion factor and managed to get quite accurate results.

GOALS  FOR NEXT WEEK

We have decided on our meeting time every Tuesday. On the upcoming week, we planned to find a way to combine the ADC and Email Sending code to send the voltage readings to our email.