SoftRock RXTX V6.3 Buiding
Posted on 07.17.09 12:55 AM under Amateur Radio, Home Brew, SoftRock, Soldering
I have been slowly building a SoftRock transceiver, which as it turns out is a bigger project than I thought it would be. Having said that, it has been great fun.
The Softrock family of kits are all centered around the SiLabs SI570 chip, a programmable oscillator, that is clocked at 4 times the center frequency required in order to generate I and Q (90 degree phase shifted) signals for mixing with received rf and passing onto a computer which acts as a software designed radio. This is of course the latest and greatest thing in radio and the SoftRock Kits are exploiting this technology cheaply and making it available to the hobbyist to build themselves. If you want to know more, check out the SoftRock page or read up on Software Defined Radio.
Only problem is the soldering of the chip!!! Check out the image below.
That’s right, surface mount is the go here, but not only surface mount, it is pinless! The chi is pinless!!! I have never done this before, but I have so far managed to solder the sucker in place and once under the command of a pic chip that programs its frequency in, it oscillates quite nicely (at 4 times the needed frequency).
The kit I am working on has a transmitter stage too, so it is a full transceiver. I will post more on it as I build more. I just wanted to show off my soldering of a pinless IC. Still can’t believe it works.
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