C I R C U I T

I D E A S

TTL THREE-STATE LOGIC PROBE

T. SURESH
TTL logic probe is an indispensable tool for digital circuit troubleshooting. Various methods can be used to design a logic probe. The most common designs employ opamps, logic (OR, NOT, XOR) gates, and transistors. The circuit presented here uses NAND logic gates of Hitachi HD series IC HD74LS00, which is a quad-NAND IC. Special technique has been employed to obtain three-state operation using just a single IC. Gate N1 is wired such that when the output of gate N1 is at logic 0 (i.e. when its input is at logic 1), LED1 will glow, to indicate high state of the point being
S. No. TIP level 1. 2. 3. Ground/logic 0 Vcc/logic 1 Floating/or connected to high impedance Output LED3 ON LED1 ON LED2 ON S.C. DWIVEDI

for use with microcontrollers, microprocessors, EEPROMs, SRAMs etc. Some points to be noted are: Use IC1 of type HD74LS00 only. If any other type of IC (e.g. 74HCT00 or 74LS00) is used, diodes D2D3-D4 should be added or deleted as

probed. Gate N3 is wired to light LED3 when the output of gate N3 is high or when the point being tested is at logic 0

level. At power-on, the output of NAND gate N2 goes low. This is the default state of the gate. The output of gate N2 goes low (indicated by glowing of LED2) during the following situations: 1. Power to the probe is switched on. 2. The probes tip is floating, i.e. when it is neither in contact with a point at logic 0 nor at logic 1 state. 3. The probe tip is in contact with a TTL output that is in high impedance state. The LED indications for various tip levels are summarised in the accompanying table. This logic probe is very well suited

necessary; for example, when using HD74LS00, one diode D2 is required. Use another diode in series with D2 if the LED indication overlaps the float indicator. (EFY Lab note. The probe was found to work properly only with HD74LS00.)

AM DSB TRANSMITTER FOR HAMS

YUJIN BOBY VU3PRX
his circuit of AM transmitter is designed to transmit AM (amplitude modulated) DSB (double sideband) signals. A modulated AM signal consists of a carrier and two symmetrically spaced side bands. The two side bands have the same amplitude and carry the same information. In fact, the carrier itself conveys or carries no information. In a 100% modulated AM signal 2/3rd of the power is wasted in the carrier and only 1/6th of the power is contained in each side band.

S.C. DWIVEDI

In this transmitter we remove the carrier and transmit only the two side bands. The effective output of the circuit is three times that of an equivalent AM transmitter. Opamp IC 741 is used here as a microphone amplifier to amplify the voice picked up by the condenser microphone. The output of opamp is fed to the double balanced modulator (DBM) built around four 1N4148 diodes. The modulation level can be adjusted with the help of preset VR1.
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The carrier is generated using crystal oscillator wired around BC548 transistor T2. The carrier is further amplified by transistor T1, which also acts as a buffer between the carrier oscillator and the balanced modulator. The working frequency of the transmitter can be changed by using crystals of different frequencies. For multi-frequency operation, selection of different crystals can be made using a selector switch. The level of the carrier coupled to the DBM can be adjusted with the help of preset VR2. The output of the DBM contains only the product (of audio and carrier) frequencies. The DBM suppresses both the input signals and produces double side band suppressed carrier (DSBSC) at its output. However, since the diodes used in the balanced modulator are not fully matched, the output of the DBM does