This spur calculator was sent in to Microwaves101.

com by "Chris & Graham" from some UK company that they wish to remain nameless. We found it useful, and so will you! The Unknown Editor October 2, 2004 Version 2 The original version came about because when I'm checking mixer performance on the bench I found it useful to know exactly where to look for spurs. If you don't know, it can be easy to miss spurs that are buried in the spectrum analyser noise but prove to be a problem later. There are lots of bits of software that produce pretty graphical plots but I wanted something that just gave me the exact frequency and also what order of product I was looking at this is a useful indicator of probable level. So we produced a simple Excel spreadsheet that just calculated all the sums and differences of the various products within a range specified given two frequencies to mix together. This spreadsheet is still useful for this. I then discovered the delights of conditional formatting and Visual Basic features like scroll bars. So I added the ability to highlight certain frequency ranges and to sweep the RF frequency and see the spurs change. A very crude example of its use Suppose we want to make an up-converter by mixing up a 300 to 350MHz RF (or IF if you like) input with a 500MHz local oscillator to produce an output from 800 to 850MHz. Enter LO frequency = 500 Enter RF frequencies of 300 to 350 Enter a step value for the RF frequency. Try 1 to start with. Enter the display range over which you want to see the mixer products. A bigger range gives a more cluttered result and it really depends on what filtering you expect to have upstream of the mixer. Try 100 to 1500 for this example. Next it worth entering some frequency ranges to highlight. I use the first range to cover the wanted output range, 800 to 850 in this case. If you have chosen a good scheme you will only ever see one frequency (the wanted one) displayed. I tend to use the other two highlighted ranges to highlight either side of the wanted range where filtering of spurs is lightly to be minimal. So try 750 to 800 for range 2 and 850 to 900 for range 3. If you now use the scroll bar you can sweep the RF input frequency from 300 to 350MHz and what the spurs change. Note that from 300 to 324MHz in i.e. 800 to 824MHz out things dont look too bad the worst in-band product is an 8th order but at 325MHz in we start getting 5th order products that may be a problem. Note about the scroll bar When I set this up it was a compromise between number of steps, speed of response etc. If you hold the mouse arrow over the scroll button and move it sideways the RF frequency will change even though the actual button on the bar may take a while to catch up. Beware We haven't put any protection on the cells so you can see what we did if you want. The range can be extended to higher orders if desired but in my experience it is more than enough.

We haven't put any protection on the cells so you can see what we did if you want. The range can be extended to higher orders if desired but in my experience it is more than enough.

LO RF

500 300

Enter values in red to 350 RF step 300 1 Spur Count 70

Display Highlight Highlight Highlight

Range Range #1 Range #2 Range #3

Actual RF frequency LO RF 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Differences 0 500 1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 LO Sums RF 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 800 1300 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 300 200 700 1200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 600 0 400 900 1400 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 900 400 0 600 1100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

4 1200 700 200 300 800 1300 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

5 0 1000 500 0 500 1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

6 0 1300 800 300 200 700 1200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

7 0 0 1100 600 0 400 900 1400 0 0 0 0 0 0

8 0 0 1400 900 400 0 600 1100 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 0 0 0 1200 700 200 300 800 1300 0 0 0 0 0

10 0 0 0 0 1000 500 0 500 1000 0 0 0 0 0

4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 10 11 12 13

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

100 800 750 850

to to to to

1500 850 800 900

11 0 0 0 0 1300 800 300 200 700 1200 0 0 0 0

12 0 0 0 0 0 1100 600 0 400 900 1400 0 0 0

13 0 0 0 0 0 1400 900 400 0 600 1100 0 0 0

11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0