via HACKADAY: Bringing Some Discipline to an SDR Transmitter

The proliferation of software-defined radio (SDR) technology has been a godsend for RF hobbyists. SDR-based receivers and transmitters have gotten so cheap that you’ve probably got a stick or two lying around your bench right now — we can see three from where we sit, in fact.

But cheap comes at a price, usually in the form of frequency stability, which can be prohibitive in some applications — especially amateur radio, where spectrum hygiene is of the utmost concern. So we were pleased to see [Tech Minds] tackle the SDR frequency stability problem by using a GPS-disciplined oscillator. The setup uses an ADALM-PLUTO SDR transceiver and a precision oscillator from Leo Bodnar Electronics. The oscillator can be programmed to output a rock-solid, GPS-disciplined signal over a wide range of frequencies. The Pluto has an external oscillator input that looks for 40 MHz, which is well within the range of the GPSDO.