CC1100 or another ASIC suitable for home made SA

[Eugen_E]

ax5042

Inspired by this: http://www.circellar.com/library/print/0406/Armitage-189/
I decided to try to design a simple homemade spectrum analyzer, based on TI/Chipcon CC1100.

The SA will use the reading of RSSI from CC1100, covering 800-928MHz, and an input mixer to convert an input spectrum of 1-128MHz to 800-928MHz.

The problem - the minimum configurable bandwidth (RBW) for CC1100 is 58kHz, which is very high.
An SA with such RBW could be used for real measurements?

How can I reduce thid bandwidth?
Could you recommend a similar chip that can be configured for lower IF bandwidth, like 1kHz?

Thanks

 

[Mazz]

ax5042 problems

This band is really low...
Narrowband receiver in this UHF band are AMIS53050, ADF7021/N (very good device), AXEM AX5042, TI CC1020.
You can reach ~10KHz BW.

I hope it can help.
Mazz

 

[Eugen_E]

cc1100 phasenoise

Thanks very much for the reply. I currently have only CC1100 and hoped to use it in a simple way.

I think I will try to use it on TX as synthesized VCO to drive the mixer and try to design the 1st IF on fixed frequency, 800MHz with coaxial cavity filter. The 2nd IF may be on 10-25MHz, then log detector, etc. This way the project becomes... complex and I don't think I have enough experience for it
I may try this on the long term.

Looking on the phase noise characteristics for CC1100, it says -90dBc @ 200kHz offset - not good.