Down convertor suits electronic warfare

Endwave Defense Systems has released new down convertor module that operates over a broad frequency range of 2-18GHz, making it ideally suited for electronic warfare (EW) and electronic counter measures (ECM). The module down-converts the broadband RF input signal to a UHF frequency on the IF output. A high isolation buffer amplifier at the LO input, along with tight filtering on RF, LO and IF ports, helps to minimise spurious signals at all inputs and outputs.

A broadband limiter is incorporated on the RF front-end for receiver protection, and temperature compensation is used to provide a stable RF-IF gain response over an extended military operating temperature range.

Typical performance for the down convertor includes a conversion gain of 20dB, a noise figure (NF) of 5dB, an input 1dB compression point (P1dB) of -15dBm, and an input 3rd order intercept (TOI) of -5dBm.

Special attention has been paid to the mechanical design of the microwave subsystem to provide over 50dB of LO rejection to the RF input port.