R. F.

Dannecker VK4ZFD
52 Pohlman Street
Southport , Queensland 421 5
A ustralia
THE PHASE-LOCK LOOP
PART ONE
Reprinted from Amat eur Rad io, Journal of the
Wireless Institute of Australia.
1
Ed
I
vc.o. o-__~
"local osci lla tor" in some fo rm o f receiver.
The task o f such a phase- lock "receiver" is
to reproduce t he o riginal signal whil e remov-
ing as much of the noise as possi ble. If the
" Iocal oscilla tor" could be locked to the
input signal and made insensitive to the
random noise on this signal, then the input
signal coul d be reconstruct ed .
The input to the loop is a noisy signal,
whereas the output of t he veo is a cl ea ne d-
up version of the input. To suppress noise,
the error out put signal fro m the phase
det ect or is averaged over some length of
time by the loop filt er. and the averaged
erro r is then used to control the fr equency
of the oscillator. It is reasonable , therefore,
to consider the loop as a kind of filter t hat
passes signals and reject s no ise .
Two import ant characteris tics o f the fil-
ter are that the bandwidth can be very sma ll
Fig. 2. Typical phase detec tor. If the signal inp u t is
Er sin (2 IT ft ) and the veo is 2 cos (2 IT it + 0)
then the o utp ut of the detector is Ed:::::: 22 sin 0
or for small 0, Ed ex E2 e for 2 > 1 , i.e. the
ou tput vol tage is proportional to the phase dif
terence between the signal input an d the veo.
UT
PHASE LOOP
NAl
DETEC TOR FILT ER
v 'V)
Fig. 1. Basic phase lock loop. ..
INP
SIG
T
hiS is the fi rst of two art icl es writt en
with a view t o acquainting amateurs
with the principles of the phase-lo ck loo p.
Applica tions of t he phase-lock loop are
outlined and the use of a phase-lock loop as
an optimum FM discriminator is discussed.
The basic phase-lock loop is shown in
block diagram form in Fig. I . It comprises
t hree basic components:
(I) A phase detector (Fig. 2),
(2) A low pass fil t er (Fig. 3),
(3) A voltage controlled oscillator ( VeO)
( Fig. 4).
The phase o f a periodi c input signal and
that of the veo is compared by the phase
detector ; out pu t of the phase detector is a
measure of the phase difference between its
two inputs. Thi s difference voltage is t hen
fi lt ered by the loop filt er and applied to the
Yeo. Control volt age o n the veo cha nges
the frequency in a directi on that reduces the
phase diffe rence between the input signal
and the Yeo.
When t he loop is "locked" the control
volt age is such that the frequency o f the
veo is exactly eq ual to the average freque n-
cy o f the input signal.
Suppo se now that the input signal carr ies
informa tion in it s phase or frequency; t his
signal is inevita bly corrupted by additive
noise. Suppose also that t he veo is t he
JULY 1972
IC-7
19
OUTPUT OF R2 TO

PHASE veo
OETECTOfl
t 0 0
H (5) ; 5 C R2 + 1 + 1
5 C (R l + R2)
where S is the complex variable.
R
UT
HASE
CTOR
CONTROL
GE
+ VE
,
Vall
FRO"

FlUE
I
-,
/I
QUTP
TO P
JE TE
=:=

- VE
The transfer rune- Fig. 3. Typ ical low pass fi lter.
l i on of thi s f ilter is
Rl
Fig. 4. Typical voltage con trolled oscillator.
and the fi lte r automa tically tracks the signal
frequency. Narrow bandwidth is capable of
rejecting large amounts of noi se ; it is not at
all unusual for a phase-lock loop to recover a
signal deeply embedded in no ise.
One appli cation of the phase-lock loop is
as the local oscillator in a synchro no us or
homodyne receiver. In essence thi s receiver
consists of nothing but a local oscill ator, a
mixer, and an audio amplifi er. To operate.
the oscillator has to be adjusted to exactly
the same fr equency as the carrier of the
incoming signal which is then converte d t o
an inte rmediate frequency of zero Hz. Out -
put o f t he mixer contai ns demodulated
informati on that is carried as sidebands by
t he signal. Correc t tuning o f the local oscilla-
t or is essential to synchronous reception ;
any frequen cy error what soever will hope-
lessly garble the informat ion. Furthermore.
phase of the local oscilla tor must agree. very
closely, with the received carrier phase. In
other words. the local oscillator must be
phase-locked to the incomi ng signal.
Another commo n appl icat ion arises in
t elevision receivers. The fl ywheel synchro-
nisers in present-day TV receivers are really
phase-locked loops.
Space use o f phase l ock began with the
first American (Russian") artifi cia l satell it es.
These carried 10 mW. CW transmitters;
received signals were co rres po nd ingly weak .
furthermore, Doppler shift made the exact
freque ncy uncert ain. At the 108 l\.Hiz fre-
quency used , the Doppler shift could range
over a +3 kHz interval. Hence an ordinary
fixe d-tuned receive r would. require at least a
6 k Hz handwidth for a signal that could he
con tained in so met h ing like a 6 Hz band-
width . This entai ls a noise penalty ( noise is
directly proporti onal to bandwidth) of
1,000 times. i. e. 30 dB. Such penalties are
in tolerabl e and that is why narrow-band
phase-locked tracki ng receivers are used .
Noise can be reject ed by a narrow-hand
filter, but if the filt er is fixed, the sign al will
almost never be within the passband . For a
narrow filt er to be usable it must be capable
of tracking the signal. A phase-locked loop is
capable of providing both the narrow hand-
width and tracking that are needed. Current
applicati ons of ph ase-lock include:
( I) Perfect afc (aut omati c frequency con-
trol) of receivers;
FIXED REFERE NCE
'"
'"

('V) OSCILL ATOR
F
I F, (0F,)
F) . I BANCF'ASS I I F I. PHASE LOW
MIXE R
-I FILTER " -I DETECTO
PASS
/ L1MI TER FILTER
F,
FREQUENCY
F'/N
';5=.., 0
MULTIPLIER

XN
Fig. 5. Basic phase-lock receiver,
20 73 MAGAZINE
l e g
Fi g. 6. Loop used as discriminator.
21

t---
""

rc
"
"
"I--
~ .
">
"
zc ' M ~ ~
VK4ZFD
Fig. 7. Threshold for Random Modula tion (Ref. 1).

REFERENCES
I. Gardner. F. M. : "Phaselock Techniques:' Wiley,
1966.
2 . Lindsey. W. c.: " Opti mum Freq uency
Demodu la tio n, ' J .P. L. Space Progra mmes Sum-
ma ry No. 37-26, vol . iv. . pp. 227-237, Apri l 1964.
3. Lathi . B. P. : "Communicat ion Systems," Wi ley,
N.Y. 1968.
4. ~ t d l u l l e n . C. W.: "Communication Theory
Principles. ' Macmillan, N. Y. 1968.
5. Harma n , W. W. : " Princi ples of the Statis tical
Theory of Communicat ion," Mcflraw Hill. N.Y.
1963.
The t hreshol d of a co nventio nal discrimi-
nat o r is considered t o he + I OfN SNR
(signal -t o-noise rati o) at t he input to t he
limit er, whereas the threshold SNR fo r the
phase-l ock loop demodulat or is ind icated in
Fig. 7.
Conclusions
The fo llowing concl us ions ma y be d rawn
regard ing discrimi na tors:
( I ) At h igh in pu t SNR' s t here is no
app recia b le d i ff e rence between
phase-locked and conve nt io nal types.
(2 ) A phase-locked loop wi ll have a lo wer
t hreshold t han the + I 0 d B of a
co nvent io na l discriminat o r.
( 3) The improvement that ca n he ga ined
depends on the modula t ion of the
input signal.
( 4) For best result s , the lo o p s hould be
specifica lly designed fo r t he modula-
tion ac t ually present.
( 5) Prcmodulu ti ng fi lte ri ng ca n provide
bett er perfo rma nce..
Ne xt month , in the seco nd art icle on this
subject, a practi cal FM demod ulat or usi ng an
IC will be d iscussed . This is of t he " add o n"
varie ty as in Fig. 6 .
,
C I OUTPUT
v.eo ":J
CONVENTI ONAL PHASE
R,
RECEIVER -:- j DETECTOR
R,
LIMITED U
OUTPUT
L F!
(2) P.c.m. tel emet ry bit sy nchronisatio n:
(3) Freque ncy multi pl iers a nd divi ders ;
( 4) Coherent transponders ;
(5 ) Noi sy o scill a t o rs can be enclosed in a
loop and locked to a clea n signal; if
the loop has wide bandwidth , the
oscilla tor tracks o ut it s own noise '.II1d
the ou tput is greatly clea ned up.
(6) A phase-l o cked lo op ca n be used as a
frequency demodulat or: in which ser-
vice it gives superior performance to
conve nti o nal disc rimina tors.
A simplifi ed d iagram of a superhetero-
dyne phase-lock receiver is shown in Fig. 5.
The principal difference bet ween th is and a
conventio nal receiver is that the local oscilla-
tor tracks the input signa l, allowing a much
narrower i-f bandwidth . The sma llness of t he
bandwid t h is limited only by error and
st abil ity considerat ions.
Consider now the o utput of th e ph ase
detect or; this is pro porti onal to the phase
difference between the i-f signal and that of
the local reference osci llat or. As the input
signal varies in freque ncy when modulat ed,
so t he output of the phase detect or will vary
in sympa thy wit h t he modulati on in order
that the veo track with t he in coming signa l
t o keep the frequency and phase of the i-f
signal correc t. Thus th is voltage fro m the
phase det ect or is a demodulat ed version o f
the FM signal. Direct use of the p hase-
detect or out put is unsa t isfactory since it
would be very noisy and unfi ltered . No rma l-
ly t he demodulated signa l is taken from the
loop low-pass filt er.
A simpler method fo r usin g a phase-lock
loop as an FM demodul at or is shown in Fig.
6: performance is of course not as good as a
fully fl edged phase-lock receiver. but prac-
tica l advantages are obvious.
JULY 1972
R. F. Dannecker VK4ZFD
52 Pohlman Street
Sou thpor t
Queensland 4215
Austral ia
emu ulatur
T
his is t he second of t wo articles, o n t he
use of t he phase-lock loop as an
FM{AM demod ulat or.
The ci rcuit to be described uses t he
Signel ics Corp. NE56 t B IC and is based on
Signet ics' application notes. Besides pro-
viding demodulati on of the FM component
of a signal and perfect afc tracking of t hat
signal, provision is also made for the
synchronous demodula ti on of the AM co m-
ponent of t he signal.
A block diagram of the NE56 1B is shown
in Fig. 1; the porti on enclosed in the dott ed
outli ne is in addit ion to the basic phase-lock
loo p already described . The AM input is
taken before any limi ter in the main receiver
and it s phase is shifte d 90 wit h respect to
the FM/rf input. This is necessary to have
the co rrect phase relati onshi p between the
AM signal and the VCO input t o the
multi plier .
l OW PASS
CON THOl DEEIo1PHA SI S
OUND
MOO
FM.
PUT
16 15
"
11 10
INPUT II I
r-,
I
PHASE l . P.
DE
n"'I.
R
F. I
f---
COMp' Fll TER
Cj OUT
INPU T12l
,
II CO. ll t"\1l ER
CAP.
J
vCO
5
OUTPUT
- - - - - -- - - - - - - - - --,
I

I
I MUl TI -
I
GR
,
,
PlIE R
,
8
I
,
I
,
, ,
6
,
, I I
7 L _ __ ____ ___ __ _ _ ..J
II CO FINE A M DEMOD.
TUNE I NPU T A M
CONTROL OUTPUT
Fi g. 1. Block di agr am o f NES61 B.
TRACKING
RANGE
CONTROL
64
73 MAGAZI NE

L.P. F.
Co
90'
+lBv
PHASE
SHIFT
4 16
15
UT
TUNED I 12 14
LIMITER
AM P.
,
I

2
NE 5618
3
MOD.
. M.
"
9 13
MUTE
II
II
1
MOD
"
.M. B 10
Cd

-
'-
DE
F:
INP
DE
A
-
-
Fig. 2. Basi c demodul ator .
Shown in Fig. 2 is t he basic demodulator.
With reference to Fig. I we have t he limi ted
FM/rf input app lied bet ween pins 12 and 13.
phase shift ed AM input applied a t pin 4 , t he
veo f requency determi ning capaci to r (Co)
connected between pi ns 2 and 3, the exter-
nal componen ts of the low pass filt er be-
tween pins 14 a nd 15. a nd the FM de-
emp hasis capaci tor (Cd) co nnected between
pi n 10 a nd ea rt h. The muti ng fu nction is
accomplished by use of t he output o f t he
AM det ect or to o pen an audio gate in the
prese nce of signal input.
The circuit diagram for the complete
demodulat or is shown in Fig. 3. Circuit
functi ons can be most readily seen with
' , ,.,y uo' 2_ 1'- If>Ja A<n OI
2"' '>' '''
". . 70
'"
180P! '1 0'
.L
f> . fi
'00
r p",n.
I
"0,
, ,c_
"
,0. 1
8
"

"
r
-,
.041
041
,
"
-,(
,<;
"
,
,
11
"
\.'
(
-\--
'"
, "
c.

O\J' P'. l
.00
,.
'SO
"
).)
"'T
1
l J

r
-

"'"
r;::o
d<
, . 1...

'""
c.
"
I
""r'
H

. 1
rc
D",
"
i ___1'''_ r-
10K .1. .003'1

'"

-
-1
Fig. 3. Phase-lock demodulator.
SEPTEMBE R 1972 RX-26 65
i
reference to Fi g. 2, The design cent re fre-
quency is 2 Mllz, but the NE56 1B will
functi on from less than I Hz to more than
15 Mll z. Input signal is amplifi ed by the
2N5486 J FET whi ch is wired as a si mple
tuned a mplifier at the required i-f. Three
AYIIOI transist ors are used in the limit er.
whil e the 90 phase shi ft is provided by an
adj ust able RC phase shif t network .
Mut ing of the FM o ut put is performed by
the use of a sui ta bly biased diode as a ser ies
gate. When no signal is present . the diode is
reverse biased by t he 2 x 2N3638 emi tt er
coupled pair and wh en signal is applied the
out pu t fro m t he synchronous AM detect or
causes the e mi tter coe pled pair to forward
bi as the di ode and allo w signal through to
the I'M output .
The AYI 101 transist or is used to set bias
levels relative to those of t he lC. AM output
is taken fro m pin I via a J FET so urce
foll ower; an MPFI02 would be suitable fo r
this functi on . The AM det ect or can also be
used to give an indi ca tion of signal st rengt h.
A suita ble ci rcui t is shown in Fig. 4 .
If o pe ratio n at so me i-f ot her t han 2 MHz
is desired , (e.g. 455 kHz) it would be
necessary t o change t he resonant circuit in
the J FET a mplifier, cha nge t he veo timing '
capaci to r Co (e .g. 600-800 p F) and t he 90
phase shift network (e.g. 2.2K, 5K po t ., 2 x

. . . VK4ZFD
Fig. 5. Alternative VCO fine tuning.
OK
2
I
3
Co
I
+18v
NE 516 B
10K
6
1
0.047
-
150 pF) . If a frequenc y less than 500 kll z is
required , considerat ion co uld be given to the
NE565 whi ch will function as an I'M/PM
detect or but does not provide fo r AM
detect ion and conseq ue ntly muting.
An alternate method of fine tuni ng the
veo is shown in Fig. 5 in which current is
inje cted into pin 6 of t he IC. A cha nge o f
+ 12% is possible for an input current of I
mA. This method of fi ne tuni ng will also
affect the tracki ng ra nge of t he demodula-
tor.
This completes the descri ption of the
phase-l ock demodulat o r.
Such a unit as has been descri bed in t his
art icle is in use in a sa tellit e tracking re ce iver
use d for monito ring navigat io nal and
weat her sa telli tes. The principal use of the
phase-lock type of detector for t his applica-
tio n is t he automatic tracking of the Doppler
shift of the signal which is as much as +4
kl lz at the frequen cies used .
When the proposed amat eur satell ite
with the active repeat er on 432 Mltz be-
co mes o pera tio nal, Doppler shift o f at least
I 0 kll z will be experienced o n the recei ved
signals fr o m the sa telli te. It will therefo re be
necessary for stat io ns re ceiving the signals to
provide some form o f t racking o f the signal
frequency . If such a tracking filter /demodu-
lator as the o ne described in this art icle is
used , the receiver bandwidth must be the
signal bandwidth plus 20 kHz to allow for
Doppler shi f t.
x
+18 v
22K 22K
~
F\
2
x2
N3638
"*'I'
-,
/'./
M
39 K 39K
-
x
-
Fig. 4. Signal level indicator.
Reprinted from Amat eu r Radio. Journal of the
Wireless Institute of Australia.
66
73 MAGAZINE