Test stereo FM transmitter with RDS.

Surfing the web, I found a small interesting FM transmitter, the RDVV 300mW in a shareware version, this could be the basis for a fine little FM test transmitter. The transmitter frequency is controlled by a Philips TSA5511 PLL IC through I2C communication, very clever engineered.
We also wanted to be able to transmit in stereo and with RDS, and found the pira.cz website, which has a very fine high quality stereo encoder and they also sell programmed RDS IC's, we choose the MRDS192. Combining these three parts has resulted in our test stereo FM transmitter with RDS, you can check out our design below:

The empty FM transmitter pcb. The schematic is in the pcb file!		Pcb file updated 2010.05.17
The FM transmitter pcb with all components mounted.
Zoom in on the homemade 4,5 winding inductor, with outlet after 1 winding. Make sure the inductor is as uniform as possible, otherwise the transmitter can get problems tuning properly.
Zoom in on the 10pF SMD capacitor mounted on the backside of the pcb.
The empty control pcb. The schematic is in the pcb file!		Pcb file updated 2010.05.17
The control pcb with all components mounted. The transmitter is controlled by a 16F628 PIC.
The empty stereoencoder pcb.		Pcb file updated 2010.05.17
The stereoencoder pcb with all components mounted. Check out pira.cz web for schematic and the 18F1220 controlprogram.
The empty RDS pcb. The schematic is in the pcb file!		Pcb file updated 2010.05.17
The RDS pcb with all components mounted. Check out pira.cz/rds web for the programmed MRDS192 PIC controller and the very hard to find 4,332Mhz crystal.
The empty 12V powersupply pcb. The schematic is in the pcb file!		Pcb file updated 2010.05.17
The 12V power supply pcb with all components mounted.
New! The front of our finished FM transmitter. It is very easy to operate: '-' or '+' to decrease or increase the transmitter frequency with 100KHz, then 'sel' (select) to tune the transmitter to the frequency on the display and 'sto' (store) to save the frequency on the display as a new power on start frequency.
New! This a test showing what 300mW look like with our dummy load antenna, a 6V 0,1A bicycle lamp. Very nice to see the transmitter is actually outputting a little power :-)
New! A picture of the finished front we choose.
New! A picture of the finished back we choose. The RS232 is connected to the MRDS192 and makes it possible to transmit 'live' RDS commands with a RDS control program found on pira.cz/rds software web.
New! A look inside the finished transmitter, download CAD files for info regarding enclosure model.		CAD files updated 2010.08.12

This page was last updated 2010-08-12.