Jeff of MightyOhm writes:
Tony Long and I designed and built a 24 GHz low noise amplifier for our ECE192 undergraduate independent study project at UCSD.
The amplifier was designed with an early version of Agilent ADS, PCBs were fabricated on Rogers 5880 (Duroid), and we hand built several prototypes on K-connector fixtures that Tony designed. Measured results were consistent with our simulations.
That looks great.
Words of caution, 25+ years ago I stayed away from that implementation of K-connectors due to the surface waves launched at the various housing interfaces. Watch out for those solder lumps at the connectors. Having to solder those K-connector feed-throughs makes you want to use brass. While using silver epoxy worked well on aluminum housings.
Did you run a insertion loss sweep of just the fixture without the pcb?
Imagine working in a gun battery over-looking the Pacific Ocean, having a machine shop (including a cnc-mill, lathes, manual milling machines), photography lab to make masks from cut and pealed rubylith, photoresist spinner and etching machine, network analyzers, power meters, signal generations, BWO sweepers, and synthesizers, antenna range and anechoic chambers to 110 GHz.
CAD/CAM software – build or buy your choice. Learn because you want to.
Design in the morning, build by 2:00 and test by 4:00.
Oh, and in San Diego.