A Ferrite Loopstick For WWVB Reception Using

The CME6005 Chip

Emmett Kyle
January 24, 2008

Abstract
This document describes a practical approach in the design of a ferrite
loopstick antenna for a radio controlled clock receiver that is tuned to
the 60kHz station WWVB. This antenna connects directly to the Cmax
CME6005 receiver chip. The main goals of this antenna design are to
maximize signal recovery and produce an antenna that has a resonant
resistance in the range of 40 − 100KΩ. According to the data sheet, this
will provide the best possible signal to noise ratio for this chip. This is
also a test for me to see what the capabilities of the LATEX typesetting and
formatting tool can do, because trying to work with and display formulas
with a regular word processor is like trying to “build a mnemonic memory
circuit using stone knives and bear skins”[1].

1 The Evaluation Board

The first antenna I built for WWVB reception was a 2’ diameter loop antenna.
It works very well. This time around, I decided to try a ferrite loop stick antenna
that mates with the CME6005 receiver chip. I happened to have a nice ferrite
rod from a project I worked on many years ago. It is 0.75” diameter and 8” long.
The CME6005 chip [2] is readily available at Digikey [3] and is fairly inexpensive.
It along with a crystal are less than $5. They also sell preassembled receiver
boards [4] which would be the best bet for most people, since the pin spacing
on the chip is on 0.025“ centers. In other words, if you don’t have a stereo
microscope to use when soldering it, you will more than likely have problems.
The CME6005 is really easy to use since it only needs a few capacitors and a
crystal to operate. It boasts 0.4µV sensitivity with a properly designed coil.
Layout is fairly critical. The board I designed uses one side as a solid ground
plane. (Figure 1). I also included two coupling capacitors for IN1 and IN2 so
I could use the inputs without having to worry about clobbering the input bias
if I wanted to connect my outside loop antenna or a signal generator.

1
 Figure 1: First coil and evaluation board

2 The Coil Requirements

The sparse documentation for the CME6005 suggests that the resonant resis-
tance value be somewhere in the range of 40 − 100KΩ. The data sheet doesn’t
specify an optimum value, so I shot for the middle at 70KΩ. Actually from
what I read, a resonant resistance of less than 40KΩ would have the amplifier
noise dominate, while a resonant resistance greater than 100KΩ would have the
L
coil noise dominate. The resonant resistance of the coil is dependent on the C
ratio and the coil Q. By matching it with the receiver input impedance, the
optimum signal to noise ratio (s/n) can be achieved. The resonant resistance
(Rres ) can be calculated by either one of these formulas:

1
Rres = 2π(fh −fl )C [5]
q
L
Rres = Q C [6]

where:
fh = upper −3db frequency
fl = lower −3db frequency
f0 = center frequency
C = capacitance
L = inductance
Q = fhf−f
0
l

2
3 Trial And Error
The first coil I wound had a resonant resistance at about 400KΩ which was way
too high. It had about 300 turns of 20/34 Litz wire on this core in two layers
and had a self resonant frequency of about 90kHz. It became apparent that
just going after the maximum signal recovery by slapping as many turns before
self resonance was not going to get the best overall performance. The problem
is that as you increase the inductance, the required capacitance becomes less,
thereby increasing the resonant resistance since they are inversely proportional.
The Q decreases as the inductance increases from more wire resistance and the
increasing L/C ratio, which helps, but its hard to tell who ”wins the race“.
Actually, the capacitance value will decrease in an inverse proprotion to the
square of the number of turns and the decrease in Q would be fairly linear
in proportion to the number of turns and the increasing L/C ratio, so the
decreasing capacitance per number of turns will have the greatest impact to
the resonant resistance for the most part. After winding and trying a few
experimental coils, I also realized a couple more things. Using Litz wire gave Q
values too high for good temperature stability and caused the resonant resistance
to be above 100KΩ in the configurations I tried. However, using Litz wire is still
the way to go because one ends up with less inductance per the number of turns.
Therefore you can get more turns for the same inductance that you could with
regular wire, and more turns equals more signal recovery. I solved the Q and
Rres dilemma by ”dumping” some of the Q and putting the resonant resistance
where I wanted it simply by adding about 9.4Ω of series resistance with the coil.
This is a fairly low resistance, and it along with the wire resistance should only
contribute about 5.78nV (section 5.6) to the input noise. The CME6005 data
sheet suggested using a tuning capacitor in the range of 2.2nF - 6.8nF . The
obvious value to shoot for would be the lower value since this would require
more inductance and therefore more turns, and therefore more signal recovery.

3
Figure 2: Final Coil and the PVC Housing. The two center “pucks” will hold
the coil inside the tube once they are machined and have grommets installed.

4 The Final Coil

The final coil ended up to be a single layer winding that covered most of the
ferrite rod with about 3/800 − 1/200 free on the ends. (Figure 2)

Coil Specifications
Core Length 8.0”
Core Diameter 0.75”
Core Permeability Unknown
Turns 155
Wire 20/34 Litz wire
AL value (100 turns) 1.34mH
µe 48.05
Cstray 77.3pF
Cres 2.99nF
D.C. resistance 0.53Ω
Inductance at 1kHz 2.65mH
Inductance at 60kHz 2.35mH
Q at 60kHz 237.2
Q with 9.4Ωresistance 71.8
Rres 67.67KΩ

4
5 Finding The Unknown Coil/Core Parameters
You don’t really need specialized equipment to gather most of the information
about an inductor in this frequency range. Only an oscilloscope with a 10x
probe, an AC voltmeter with a db scale (you can use just the scope if you don’t
have one and look for 0.707 amplitude), a signal generator, another coil or loop
attached to the signal generator who’s self resonance is much higher than the
frequencies you are working with. An LCR meter helps but is not required if
you have some capacitors of a known value. A frequency counter connected to
the signal generator is also very helpful in getting accurate measurements. Set
up the two coils parallel, next to each other (but not too close) and connect the
scope probe to the coil under test.

5.1 Calculation Of The Number Of Turns For A Desired

Inductance When Using an Unknown core Material
Finding the AL value (inductance per number of turns) of an unknown core can
be found by simply winding Ntest number of turns on the core and finding or
measuring the resultant inductance. On a rod, it is preferable to wind the coil
in the middle of the rod to obtain better accuracy of the measurement. Ntest
should be at least 100 turns. Once the inductance is measured, it is easy to
calculate the “ballpark” number of turns that will be required for the desired
inductance:
q
Nturns = Ntest LLmeasured
desired
[7]

5.2 Stray Capacitance

There is a very useful formula for calculating the stray or distributed capacitance
of an inductor. With this formula, all one has to do is take two measurements
of the resonance frequency of the coil using two known capacitor values. The
stray capacitance will equal:
f22 C2 −f12 C1
Cstray = f12 −f22
[8]

Final Coil Cstray 77.3pF

f1 56.45kHz
f2 98.47kHz
C1 3.30nF
C2 1.03nF

5
5.3 Finding The Inductance
Calculate the stray capacity of the coil and then add it to a known capacitor
value. Use the known capacitor, find the resonant frequency and solve for L:

1
L= ω 2 (Cknown +Cstray ) [9]

where:
L = inductance
ω 2 = 4π 2 f 2
Cknown = A capacitor of a known value
Cstray = stray capacity calculated in section 5.2
f = the resonant frequency

Some LCR meters do a pretty good job a giving true inductance, but they
usually operate at 1kHz, so the inductance may be different at frequency of
interest due to the core characteristics, skin effect, etc.

5.4 Finding The Effective Permeability (µe )

I did not know the initial permeability of the ferrite material I had, so I couldn’t
calculate the effective permeability. Even if I did know the initial permeability,
other factors like the winding geometry, etc. will give you a coil inductance
that doesn’t match up to what would be calculated even if the permeability was
known. One really doesn’t need to know the effective permeability unless you
are interested in determining the signal recovery and or the signal to noise ratio
of the coil. I thought it would be interesting to know these things, so I ended
up winding an air core coil of the same dimensions as the ferrite version and
determed its inductance. I then divided the inductance of the ferrite coil by the
inductance of the air core coil. In the case of the final coil:

µe = 2.35mH/48.93µH = 48.05

5.5 Signal To Noise Ratio And The Noise Floor

The signal to noise ratio (s/n) of a tuned loop is given by:
q
(s/n)(db) = 20log( 66.3N
√ Aµe Qf L e) [10]
0
∆f

The noise floor of the coil would then be:

q
nf = 66.3N1 Aµe ∆f L
Qf0 [11]

where:
nf = noise floor volts
N = number of turns
A = cross sectional area in square meters
µe = effective permeability

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Q = the coil Q
f0 = center frequency
L = inductance
volts
e = field strength in meter
∆f = -3db bandwidth of the receiver

Final Coil
s/n 46.2db
nf 0.492µV
N 155
A 304.3x10x−6 m2
f 60kHz
∆f 10Hz
L 2.35mH
µe 48.05
Q 71.8
e 100µV /m

5.6 Amplifier Input Noise

The input noise power (Pn ) and voltage (En ) to an amplifier can be found by:

Pn = kT
√ o B [12]
En = Pn R [13]

Where:
k = 1.38x10−23 (Boltzman’s constant)
To = 290o Kelvin
B = bandwidth
R = resistance

Therefore the noise voltage contribution of the coil DC resistance and the
9.4Ω series “swamping” resistance would be:

Pn 3.362x10−18 Watts
En 5.779nV
B 840Hz
R 9.93Ω

The input noise from the coil calculated from this equation is in the ballbark
to the nf value obtained in section 5.5 based on the resonant resistance and the
total series resistance:

Pn 3.362x10−18 Watts
En 0.477µV
B 840Hz
R 67.68KΩ

7
References
[1] ”Spock: Star Trek: The City On The Edge Of Forever“
[2] “http://www.c-maxgroup.com/products/showProduct.php?id=2“
[3] ”www.digikey.com: P/N 561-1013-1-ND“
[4] ”www.digikey.com: P/N 561-1014-ND“
[5] ”CME6005-A7.pdf“
[6] ”http://www.c-max-time.com/tech/antenna.php
Equation in Step 1. NOTE: the original equation from this page is bad.“
[7] ”http://www.amidoncorp.com/aai ferritecores.htm“

[8] ”Andy Przedpelski, A.R.F. Products Inc. I used it about 25 years ago when
I worked for him.“
1
[9] ”Derived from the resonance formula: f = √
2π LC
“

[10] ”http://www.kongsfjord.no/dl/Antennas/Loop%20Antenna%20Sensitivity.pdf
Dallas Lankford. He also cited this equation from: Ferromagnetic Loop
Aerials For Kilometric Waves, Wireless Engineer, Feb. 1955, pages 41-46,
J.S. Belrose“
[11] ”http://www.kongsfjord.no/dl/Antennas/Loop%20Antenna%20Sensitivity.pdf
Equation [10] Solved for n with s/n = 1“
[12] ”Solid State Design For The Radio Amateur: Advanced Receiver Concepts,
Page 111“
[13] ”Solving for voltage given the power from equation [12] and resistance.“