AWR Application Notes

Design of a 10GHz LNA for Amateur Radio Operation Using AWR Software Cadence is a pivotal leader in electronic design and computational expertise, using its Intelligent System Design strategy to turn design concepts into reality. Cadence customers are the world's most creative and innovative companies, delivering extraordinary electronic products from chips to boards to systems for the most dynamic market applications. www.cadence.com © 2020 Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Cadence, the Cadence logo, and the other Cadence marks found at www.cadence.com/go/trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 14720 06/20 SA/RA/AN-M-LNA/PDF For maximum receiver sensitivity (minimum system noise figure), losses between the dish feed horn and the LNA had to be minimal. Similarly, on the transmit side, losses between the power amplifier and the dish feed horn had to be kept to a minimum. While most of the transmit and receive circuitry was located in the transverter (also home brew) shown in Figure 12, the LNA and PA were mounted with the feed horn at the dish. Figure 13 shows two views of the LNA, coaxial relay, PA, isolator, and feed horn. Figure 12: 10W transverter (transmit/receive converter) Figure 13: Dish horn feed assembly with LNA and PA Conclusion Because store-bought ham radios are not available for microwave bands, this application note has described the custom design of a 10GHz LNA that enables the use of amateur radio within such a band. A key block of the final home-brew ham radio, the LNA was realized using AWR Microwave Office software. This enabled the designer to tune the design while simulta- neously watching gain, match, NF, and stability. On-air results for the final product have been outstanding. There are half a dozen ham radio operators with 10GHz stations within 50 miles of this designer (author of application note) and they can all communicate on a routine basis. With a hilltop location and good view in all directions, the most distant of these local hams is located 45 miles away. The most exciting contact occurred early one morning when ducting and scatter conditions supported unusually long path propagation. The designer was able to contact a station in Allen, Texas (north of Dallas), 213 miles away. For more information on this topic: http://k5tra.net/10GHz.html . Acknowledgement Special thanks to ham radio operator Tom Apel (K5TRA) for his contributions to this application note.

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