SSBTRANSMITTER

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RF
InPut

Fig. 19-Simplified SSB bahnced modulator.

The heart of an SSB transmitter is a "Balanced Modu-
lator". The balanced modulator is a bridge circuit
with an audio input and an RF input. A simplified
balanced modulator is shown in Fig.19. The function
of the balanced modulator is to produce both the
upper and lower sidebands when the audio modula-
ting signal and RF signal are injected at their respec-
tive inputs. The balance control is adjusted until the
RF carrier is completely canceled in the bridge.
Fig. 20 shows how the balancedmodulator is used in
a typical SSB transmitter. This example typifies most
SSB transmitters which use a frequency lower than
the carrier frequency to operate the balanced modu-
lator. This simplifies the design of the balanced mod-
ulator since it operates at a lower frequency.
The output of the balanced modulator has both the
upper and lower sidebandspresent. To selectthe pro-
per sideband, the output of the balanced modulator
is fed to a filter that removes the unwanted sideband.
At this point, we have an SSB signal with a sup-
pressed carrier of 7.8 MHz. This signal is applied to
the input of the transmit mixer which operates the
same as a receiver mixer except we are raising the
frequency instead of lowering it. The output of this
mixer is the desired RF frequency.
The output of the transmit mixer is fed to several
stages of linear amplification, and finally to a low-
pass filter to eliminate any harmonic content that has
been created in the mixing processes.The output of
the filter is fed to the antenna for transmission.

Measure
Measure
Frequency
Frequency
RF Voltage

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Frequency UseScopeConverter
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RF Voltage
USBAM I-SB

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Fig. 20-Typical SSB transmitter.

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