Lab 5 Lawrence Woody Darren Hushak

Introduction
The purpose of this lab is to use the MC1496 communications IC as a DSB-AM modulator, a DSBSC modulator, and a mixer. CAUTIONS: 1. The circuit in Figure 1 requires three different power supply voltages. Their values are somewhat critical so please adjust the power supply values using a digital multimeter. 2. Double-check your circuit connections before powering up the circuit. The communications IC can be easily damaged if incorrectly connected. 3. The 1496 IC is very sensitive to the carrier input level. Be sure to follow recommendations given in the text. The carrier input should NEVER exceed 2 volts peak-to-peak. TEST EQUIPMENT: 1. Oscilloscope 2. Digital Multimeter 3. Function Generator 4. Power Supplies (+12vdc, +5 vdc, -8 vdc) BACKGROUND: The MC1496P communications IC may be used for a variety of mixer applications. It is designed so that the local oscillator input port (carrier input) is balanced. This means that it can be adjusted to null the carrier frequency component at the output. This feature permits the generation of double-sideband modulation with full-carrier, vestigial carrier, and suppressedcarrier waveforms. The circuit has been designed to be very linear if the carrier input signal level at pin 10 is 25 millivolts peak, or less, and the modulation input signal at pin 1 is 1 volt peak, or less. For the circuit of Figure 1, this limit is set by the product ReI5= 1 volt. A carrier input of 0.3 volts peak will cause the unmodulated carrier waveform to be early a square-wave. This will produce output harmonics that also have double-sideband modulation.

Procedure
AM Modulator 1. Construct the circuit of Figure 1, apply power and connect a 50 millivolt peak-to-peak 15 kHz sine wave signal to the carrier input. Do not apply modulation yet. Observe the output on the oscilloscope while adjusting the carrier balance control. The output carrier should be a maximum at each end of the potentiometer and reach a null near the pot midpoint. Does it operate as expected? If not, check the circuit to make sure that it is properly wired. Now set the balance pot to one end so the carrier output is a maximum. Now slowly increase the carrier input until the output appears to be distorted. At what input level (do not exceed 2 volts peak-topeak.) Does the carrier sinewave output just begin to appear distorted? At what input level, if any, does the carrier appear to be peak limited (where obvious clipping has occurred)? 2. With a peak-to-peak carrier input of 50 to 100 millivolts, adjust the balance control for a minimum carrier output. Try to measure this minimum level or report an upper bound for it. Now apply a 1-volt peak-to-peak 500 Hz sinewave to the modulation input (pin 1). Observe the output waveform and determine if it is DSB-SC. 3. While observing the output waveform, adjust the carrier balance control (and also the modulation level, if necessary) to get 100% modulation. Now adjust the balance control to obtain over-modulation. 4. Store the waveforms observed for DSB-SC, 100% modulation, and overmodulation. 5. Measure and record the spectral components for 100% modulation and for DSBSC. Are distortion sidetones present? For DSB-SC, what is the carrier suppression in dB relative to the input carrier? If you used the FFT module, what window and sampling rate did you use? 6. Check the spectrum for a large carrier input (limiting occurs). 7. Check the operation of the circuit as a mixer by applying two signals at the two input ports where each signal has the same amplitude. The frequency difference should be sufficiently large to measure the sum and difference of the two frequency components. AM Demodulator 1. Set the carrier frequency at 25kHz and 50mVpp and the modulating message at 1kHz and 500mVpp. 2. Change the power supply voltage +12V to +10V and -8V to -10V. 3. Check the modulator output in time and frequency domains. Adjust the potentiometer to generate DSB-LC. 4. Build the precision rectifier circuit. +8V can be changed to +10V and -8V to -10V. 5. Connect 1k Ohm resistor to Vo and observe the time-domain waveform and spectrum. Compare it with the modulator output. 6. Design and build a filter to get the message.

Circuit
The following figure shows the circuit that we designed for both the modulator and demodulator stages of this experiment:

For the two op-amps providing precision rectification, the +8v rail is provided by a voltage divider off of the +12v supply in the top circuit.

Data
Modulator

Part 1: Carrier, no Modulator

Shown above is the output waveform and spectrum of the modulator circuit. The Modulator input is a 15kHz, 2mVpp waveform. This waveform is shown with the potentiometer turned all the way to one direction, allowing for the carrier to pass through to the output.

Now, we turn the potentiometer to reduce the carrier output, and achieve a waveform like such:

Turning the potentiometer further to the center eliminates the carrier from the output entirely. Next, we increased the carrier input until noticeable distortion occurred, and achieved this:

Notice the rounding of the sine wave, and the extra frequency lobe above the fundamental. This occurred roughly around 1.3 Vpp at the carrier input.

Part 2 and 3: Adding modulator, no carrier Now we set the minimal carrier output, and add a modulating signal. The input modulating signal was a 500Hz, 1Vpp Sine wave. At the output we got the following waveform:

This is a fine example of 100% modulation of a DSBSC modulated signal; there is a zero crossing, but we can still see the carrier frequency enveloped by the input frequency. Also note the two frequency lobes, both 500Hz away from the 15kHz carrier frequency. Part 3: Overmodulation Now, adjusting the potentiometer, we can achieve overmodulation:

Part 5: We were able to achieve 100% DSBSC, with an almost infinite drop in decibel from the sideband component to the carrier components. We used a Hanning window type for the FFT display. Part 6: Large carrier input Note the spectrum and waveform in part 3 for a large carrier input. Part 7: Circuit as a mixer When both carrier and modulator inputs were at roughly the same voltage values, we achieved the following waveform:

Demodulator For the demodulator circuit, we used the precision rectifier circuit shown in the figure at the beginning of the report. For the filter, we set a cutoff frequency of 1.2 kHz, which resulted in a passive RC lowpass filter shown in the circuit above. We used an R of 1.3k and a C of .1uF. To increase the roll off above the cutoff frequency, we simply added an identical RC lowpass filter immediately following the output, which provided a much better demodulated output signal. Finally, we used a small capacitor as a DC blocker. The final waveform and spectrum is shown here:

Note that there is a small (and expected) amount of distortion, which is really difficult to avoid using this demodulation technique.

Theory
The MC1496 chip is a chip that modulates a carrier input signal with an independent input signal via Amplitude Modulation. If set up properly, the output carrier magnitude can be adjusted using a single potentiometer, allowing the designer to sweep between 0% and 100% modulation. For demodulation, the precision rectifier eliminates any of the negative portion of its input signal (hence, rectifying). This results in a fourier transform equaling the input FT, repeated every Fc (including being centered around zero). The output of the rectifier is then sent to a lowpass filter network, to eliminate the higher frequency components. Then, the DC portion of the signal is blocked by a capacitor, recovering the original message signal. The ideal system would totally eliminate the higher frequency components, but as this is the real world, nothing is ideal, and there are still remnants of those higher frequency components in the output.

Conclusion
In this lab we learned, with real components, how to build an Amplitude Modulator, as well as an AM demodulator. We learned what overmodulating looks like, and its effects on the demodulated output. We used a small amount of design to complete the assignment, namely designing the output filter.

REFERENCE:
MC1496 Datasheet: http://www.eng.iastate.edu/ee423/EE423/labs/mc1496rev4f.pdf Digital Multimeter: http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/34401-90004.pdf Power Supply http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5959-5329.pdf