ADF7020 ISM BAND TRANSCEIVER module

Found out the ADF7020 radio module is quite popular in market, so just brought some back to get a hands on it.

The ADF7020 chip
This chip, once frustrated me, because it's such highly integrated and it make ones feels that most of the study in discrete RF circuit design is worthless, LNA, quadrature mixer, IF filter, IF amplifier, modulator, demodulator, ADC, power amp, PLL... all-in-one single chip. What a respectable piece of art. It looks like there are no space left for RF designer. But I have to overcome this frustration and test test this little modules.

The module

The module is supposed to be inserted between two UART device as a cable replacement device. It consists of ADF7020 ISM band transceiver, a MCU, which responds for initialization and translate the external UART signal to the data format required for ADF7020. A 11.0592MHz crystal , what an odd frequency, some matching circuit, a SMA connector, a power regulator, and 7 pin interface terminal.
The manufacturer provide with an PC tool to config the module, the tool controls the carrier frequency, RF output power, baud rate etc. I set the carrier to around 443MHz and trying to see if any RF comes out from the SMA connector.

The output

It just fire up RF output once power is turn on, clearly seeing the fundamental 441MHz output, with power level of 15dbm (adjusted figure due to -3db attenuator) and some harmonics, about be 30dbc lower than the fundamental. This is a good start, some real field test have to be done to see how this power level is translating to the actually usable distance.