RE: [Discuss-gnuradio] MicroTune Tuners

[Ben Gelb]

Thanks very much for your help.

I will give Microtune a call and see if I can squeeze one or two of
those modules out of them, if not I will be off on a salvage mission.
I'd have to imagine the odds of running up against and actual Microtune
module are sort of slim, so hopefully whatever I may come across will
have some documentation available.

I think that 5.75MHz was sort of a rare IF value for a tuner. (?) It
sounds as if something like 36MHz or 44MHz might be more common. If this
is the case can you suggest any sort of down-converter circuit? Would
something simple like an SA602 with a local oscillator of some sort
suffice? Analog electronics is not an area I'm particularly strong in,
so any recommendations are appreciated.

Thanks very much for your invitation to Lamar. Lamar hadn't been on my
radar screen, but I'll have to take a look at it.

-Ben

-----Original Message-----
From: H. R. Myler (@ MacLULU) [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 8:55 AM
To: Ben Gelb
Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] MicroTune Tuners

>Harley -
>
>I'm pretty new to the GNURadio group, but I am searching for the
>Microtune 4937 tuner modules and I'm curious to know how you managed to
>get them.
>
>I'm a high school student and I am hoping to work with GNURadio for my
>senior research project.
>
>I appreciate your help.
>
>Regards,
>Ben Gelb, KF4KJQ

I convinced MicroTune to sell them to me. That  really didn't happen, 
I believe what they did was sample them to me and I paid the FedEx 
fee from Singapore or the Philippines (wherever they are 
manufactured). In actuality, I don't think they are made anymore. One 
place to find them is in old set-top boxes. You may score one of 
those from a satellite TV installer. Another place to look is Nuts & 
Volts magazine--as a Ham you should be familiar with it.

If you come to Lamar for an EE degree, I will let you work with one 
of mine (in a shield room, no less).

-- 
H. R. Myler, Ph.D.,P.E.
Professor & Chair
Mitchell Chair in Telecommunications
Department of Electrical Engineering
Lamar University
Beaumont, Texas 77710-0029

p: 409.880.8747   f: 409.880.8121

http://ee.lamar.edu/myler/index.html