Sometimes, just sometimes, all your ducks align in a row and you build something that is dead set on the money. I think today I have done just that with this crystal filter.
Firstly I have redesigned the PCB board and test jig setup I am using, making construction just a little bit easier and allows me to easily use the slightly larger binocular core.
But secondly, I think i hit the nail squarely on the head, with this filter. I mean its almost perfect. 5dB loss, great, good shape factor, great, -55db stop band, great, exactly 2200Hz passband PRICELESS. I honestly could not have done better even if I tried. Now to build the receiver board and pray to Jebus that it works as good as this filter looks.
As a bonus, here is his friend the CW filter, 600Hz wide. A little more lossy but still good stop band and shape. I was shooting for 500Hz, bit I need maybe another 15pF per node. Good enough for me though, that is 2 filters for a receiver, 2 filters that should perform reasonably well.
Final EDIT:
So I was going to upload the gerbers and create a great big post about how to use them. But, i went looking for the files and it looks like I have deleted them by mistake when cleaning up my project files. I got no idea how I did that, but they are gone and its a lot of work to recreate them, so there will be no release of these PCB files. Lucky for me I can reorder them easily and I also have enough board here to make 20 filters, that should be a life times supply for me. Rather sad really, because they work so well.
Rob.




