reasons why frequency different in 3 devices

Thread Starter

lemonjuice

Joined Nov 26, 2016
5
Hi, I had build a transmitter. I check its transmission frequency at antenna using my smartphone's radio and it shows 97MHz. However, when I test again using oscilloscope, it shows 50MHz and another 107MHz in spectrum analyser. Using the same song as input, but why 3 different results?
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
15,131
The scope and analyser, or the inductance and capacitance of their test leads, are presumably loading the circuit too much and affecting the tuning.
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
15,131
I see from another forum that your circuit is on a breadboard with straggly wiring. Yet another reason why the frequency is unstable.
 

Sensacell

Joined Jun 19, 2012
3,786
Assembling it on a PCB will help- but not cure the problem.

A stable transmitter needs multiple stages of buffering and isolation to prevent the load from pulling the output frequency.
Good designs typically use crystal oscillators as a frequency standard, either as a direct source, or via a phase-locked-loop frequency synthesizer.
 
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