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Four Tubing Duplexer Using Band Pass and Reject

Mohd Fadel Alwi
Department of Communication Engineering,
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
86400 Parit Raja,Batu Pahat
Johor, Malaysia

e-mail: fadel@uthm.edu.my, hp: +6019-7775785, faks: +607-4536060

Abstract - A band pass Duplexer for simultaneous operation of a

mobile relay station is essential in the world of army II. CONCEPT OF DESIGN
communication system. A new method of designing the band pass
duplexer is proposed in this paper. The main structure of the
A. General Design
band pass duplexer is a parallel coupled line connected with a
capacitor. The duplexer are designed in order to improve
communication system and radio amateur. It can be Generally design of cavity filter with each cavity coupled to
implemented by attaching at the army vehicles such as land an arbitrary number of other cavities is presented [3]. In this
rover as repeater at operation area. It also can be used with radio paper, a general approach for designing multiple coupled
amateur as a mobile repeater. The band pass duplexer works as cavity filter, which overcomes the aforesaid drawback; this
a band pass filter which allows user to communicate with each approach, applicable to a large class of specific filter structure,
other within a frequency range of 140 MHz to 150 MHz VHF. is based on the introduction of suitable equivalent cavities
Therefore, the duplexer is capable to minimize loses in which include the effect of the coupling elements. Duplexers
transmitting and receiving a signal within that frequency range.
can be constructed in several ways. There are many ways to
Keywords- band pass duplexer, repeater, combine filters to perform duplex operation such as band-pass
duplexers, band-reject or notch duplexers.

B. BR- Band Reject

I. INTRODUCTION
Band Reject, also known as 'Notch Duplexer' built using
Due to the demand for land mobile radio, the problem tuned or resonant elements that 'notch' out one particular
caused by frequency congestion, receiver desensitization and frequency in the receive and transmit legs. A Band Reject
intermodulation. The selective cavity can solve these (BR) type duplexer means that deep attenuation 'notches' are
problems. To transmit and receive a signal on the same provided for receiver protection (from the transmitter's output)
antenna at the same time, reject unwanted signals and in the as well as and transmitter noise (at the receive frequency). The
case of the duplexer feed two different signals to the same attenuation of 'out of band' signals is less with a BR design
antenna. The duplexer separates and isolates the incoming than that achievable with a BP design (although there is some
signal from the outgoing and vice versa. It is still needed attenuation of 'out of band' signals with a BR design).
because ever been in a place where there's lots of RF activity,
and noticed the receive performance of your radio degrades to C. BP- Band Pass
some degree. Duplexer will prevents the receiver and
transmitter from 'hearing' one another by the isolation it BP - Band Pass, built using tuned or resonant elements
provides. which 'pass' one particular frequency in the transmit and
receive legs. BP duplexers are especially suitable in frequency
It also a device that is referred to by several different names crowded areas and provide additional rejection of in-band and
like cavities or cans. There is some loss to the system because out-of-band signals. BP duplexers generally have a slightly
of the duplexer however the advantage of being able to use a higher IL than BR style duplexers often times it is worth the
single antenna usually outweighs the drawbacks. The major slight 'cost' of the additional IL for the protection afforded the
objective of this project is to develop the band pass duplexer receiver and the filtering done to the transmitter; sometimes
system for frequency range 130 - 170 MHz VHF. the 'path' into the transmitter is a source of transmitter

978-1-4244-2251-7/08/$25.00 2008 I E E E intermodulation with other nearby transmitters so the benefit

of a BP extends there as well.



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B. Design
C. Cavity Deplaning Filters
Many researches had been done to identify the availability
A cavity is a single resonator, usually in the form of an of the product in the market. It is available in a variety of
electrical quarter Wavelength [1]. A resonant cavity filter is model and several of them appear to meet radio amateur
typically a two port device and the Response characteristic requirement, several duplexer models will meet their
depends on the filter type (band-pass, band-reject, notch or requirement, so the particular model selected becomes a matter
vary-notch). Most resonant cavity filters are made of seamless of preference. There are two distinct types of duplexers used in
aluminum and finished with a passivity anodized finish [2]. the two way radio communication: the band pass duplexer and
Cavity resonator filters are usually implemented with helical, band reject duplexer. The duplexer selected must provide
coaxial, or waveguide resonators. Coaxial filters are available certain function if optimum system performance is to be
in frequencies from 30MHz to over 10GHz and helical filters achieved. A duplexer must be designed for operating in the
from below 10MHz to 2GHz [4]. frequency band in which our duplex system operates, capable
of handling the output power of the transmitter and designed
to separate transmit frequency and receive frequency.

Figure 1: Design for Band Pass Filter

III. DEVELOPMENT OF DUPLEXERS

A. Materials

Prior to constructing the duplexer, choosing the type of

metal tubing came. Commercial manufacturers use
aluminums, but they have heli-arc welding and machine shop
facilities. The aluminum it cant solder easily. Steel also is
unsatisfactory due to its low conductivity and because it rusts. Figure 2: Fabrication of Duplexer
Some commercial manufacturers have successfully used
copper-plated steel, but this is difficult for the home builder.
The only real choice is copper or brass. Starting with copper C. Selective Cavity
as the construction material, again have two choices, tubing
made for the metal working industry or from army sources. A selective cavity is a rather simple device that serves as a
Copper from cannonball 105mm is best for several reasons. filter for radio frequencies. It ability to get a narrow band of
This is because in the army a used cannonball for training and frequencies pass through while frequencies outside this
war, so that tubing will be disposed or be recycled. Due to narrowband are attenuated. The narrow bands of frequencies
ease of obtaining it, it will save money and hand made with pass through the cavity are within a few thousand hertz of the
craftman workship. That alone makes copper tube from cavitys resonant frequency. The selective cavity, with this
cannonball cartridge 105mm is the only choice. filtering action is important in the land mobile radio. As new



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station go on the air, cause the interference to other station. Receiver Section - Removed the termination from the RX
The two most common forms of interference are receiver port, then remove generator from TX port and connect to RX
degradation and intermodulation. Receiver desensitization port . Connect the termination to the TX port and adjust the
occurs when a nearby transmitter over power a receiver. notch so that it is on the TX frequency, but on this part a notch
Intermodulations occur when two or more nearby transmitters curve is not appear. This problem occurs because of cavity
mix within the RF stages of a receiver and generate new filter for notch part need adjustment at tuning coil and cavity
frequency. In both cases, selectivity can be used to help solve size.
the problem.
iii) Signal and Troubleshoot.
D. Experiment Band Pass Curve - During tuning section of all the duplexer,
the sections of cavity filter for pass band at first not show
After the planning phases, lastly this cavity filter had been
wave form is wanted. After make changes with increase
completed and successfully tested. Analysis regarding to the
trimmer capacitor series with tuning rod. New wave form get
system had been done to verify whether the completed
acquired shown at Figure 4, this show cavity filter this too
hardware is functioning properly. The analysis can be divided
high impedance. This action is to get pure resistive.
into three sections they are tuning, transmit and receive signal
and troubleshoot.

Figure 3: Tuning Process Figure 4: Band Pass Curve

Self Resonance - During the tuning process, self resonance

i) Tuning appear at 70 MHz when RF generators inject a signal to the
cavity filter. Self resonances occur because high insertion loss
The important part after complete the construction is tuning. in cavity filters, it generates a frequency itself because of hand
Tuning process must be doing one at one time for each cavity made construction of cavity. This problem can be solving by
filter. The loop tuning, is connected to a spectrum analyzer increase the size of cavity, vacuum and silver plating inside
with a tracking signal generator. The objective of optimization the cavity. Silver plated can be done by electrolysis process.
is to adjust for insertion loss in the band pass cavities and
separation of notch and bump in the notch cavities. The Band Pass versus Notch - At the band pass bump, both
duplexer provides enough attenuation of the transmitter signal, notch and band pass cavities perform in the same way. The
and transmitter parasitic, to prevent overloading or defenses of low-loss peak or bump is tuned to the frequency that we want
the receiver. A duplexer is divided into a transmit and receive to pass, receive or transmit. At that frequency the filter is
section. The duplexer has three ports; they are the Antenna essentially transparent to the energy on the transmission line.
port, TX port and RX port. That is, the line does not know that the filter is there. Other
frequencies, however, are blocked. The key issue in deciding
ii) Tuning the Duplexer which type of filter to use is how much a band pass cavity
blocks everything except the small band near where it's tuned.
Transmitter Section - Once choosing a particular method it A notch cavity blocks only a small band where it is tuned. It
is usually good to stick to that one. First terminate the RX port lets everything else pass.
with the 50 ohm terminator. Second connect the generator to
the TX port. Third connect the analyzer to the Antenna Port. A band pass cavity does exactly what its name implies; it
Look at screen and observe position of the band pass curve passes a band of frequency of 145MHz to 148MHz, not just a
appear and frequency is 148.050MHz. TX adjustment is single frequency. If it were good enough, if its bandwidth were
complete for the moment. small enough, it would be the universal answer to duplexer
filters.



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cavities are cascaded to form a duplexer. Duplexer isolation

IV. CONCLUSION can be adjusted by changing the number and size of the
cavities and do are silver plating of the internal components
Wavelength, is important and need to make a best
of cavity. These duplexers have very high Q factors and also
performance for duplexer. The filters in a band pass
their resonant frequencies are determined by mechanical
duplexer are working at frequency range 140MHz to
components, especially by the tuning rod.
150MHz. Band pass filter is allows, or passes, a band, (or a
narrow range) of frequencies. A four tubing are made to be
REFERENCE
a duplexer; two for band pass and other for band reject and
the size for duplexer is 4 inches diameter and 16 inches [1] Steven Patterson, RF Communication Theory with Cavity and
length. Duplexer, Ussery Printing. Company, Irvin, Texas, 1964.
[2] Dave Metz , Duplexer Theory and Tuning, , 1987.
[3] Giuseppe Macchiarella, IEEE Transaction on Microwave Theory and
Techniques, vol.45, no 2, 1997.
[4] Williams and Taylor, Electronic Filter Design Handbook, Second
V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Edition, McGraw Hill Publisher, chapter 5, 1988.
[5] ARL Handbook for Radio Amateurs American Radio Relay
League, 1991.
In the future project, cavity filter will modify to get a [6] Adaptive Duplexer for Software Radio.
duplexer with band pass and band reject. A number of



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