[time-nuts] YIG oscillators

[Jim Lux]

On 1/4/13 11:34 AM, Ed Palmer wrote:
> They are neat toys, aren't they?  :-)  I discovered them a couple of
> years ago.  Since then I've collected a few from ebay to play with.
> They're oddball units with no documentation, but they weren't too hard
> to decipher.  I even cobbled together a phase-lock system for one.  It
> worked, but it was too noisy for my needs.  It seems like YIGs have been
> superseded by VCOs for most applications - but I'm by no means an expert.
>

Most VCOs don't have multioctave bandwidths, but YIGs do that with no 
sweat.

YIGs are also used as wideband tunable preselectors.

Back in the 80s, I used an EIP counter to drive a YIG as a wideband LO 
for a spectrum analyzer kind of application.  The counter had the right 
coarse and fine outputs, and was controllable via GPIB, etc.

There's some companies making very small (1 cm3) YIG oscillators with 
wide bandwidths and really good vibration/shock tolerance, as well.  I 
suspect that the application is something like small jammers dropped 
from planes and the like.