RF lab set up ...

[NateDuong]

Dear everyone...

I am trying to set up a RF lab at home to help me do DSP projects with very low frequency, as low as possible.

Anyone who has experiences about RF lab, please give me some ideals and what machines from basic to advance will be needed for the lab?

Thank you,

Nate Duong.

[mazurov]

You meant 'high' frequency, not 'low', correct? You can detect RF with a diode, it will be very cheap. The oscilloscope/probes need to be rated for 10x the frequency of interest if you want to see well in time domain.

[NateDuong]

I meant "low" frequency such as heart beat...so there is no way to measure it?

[T3sl4co1l]

"RF" broadly means electromagnetic radiation, at frequencies able to be carried in wires and radiated through space; very loosely, 100kHz to 100GHz or so.

You can do "RF" at ELF (< 10kHz), but it's considerably more difficult.

Heartbeats have nothing to do with RF; perhaps you're confusing abbreviations?

Tim

[JoeN]

Heartbeats have nothing to do with RF; perhaps you're confusing abbreviations?

Perhaps he will be the first person to be able to detect heartbeats from radiated EMF rather than electrodes.  Now how cool would that be?   

[hendorog]

Perhaps he will be the first person to be able to detect heartbeats from radiated EMF rather than electrodes.  Now how cool would that be?   

He won't be the first. I remember reading a few years ago about a trial of a system which could detect people trapped under rubble after an earthquake. It detected respiration and heartbeat - RF goes all the way to DC
Apparently it was used for real in Nepal after the recent quake there.

Google found all these:
http://www.academia.edu/5382185/Contactless_Detection_and_Analysis_of_Human_Vital_Signs_Using_Concurrent_Dual-Band_RF_System

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19964829
http://nyuwireless.com/ThePulse/03/Heart-Rate-Measurement-Utilizing-Non-Contact-RF-Detection-From-Within-The-Mouth.php
http://fox41blogs.typepad.com/wdrb_weather/2015/05/nasas-radar-found-4-men-trapped-under-rubble-in-nepal-by-their-heartbeats.html

[Alexei.Polkhanov]

I think I got it. He is talking about Doppler radar systems that are used by police for example to detect if there is anyone in a room behind a wall etc. Those are 3GHz as far as I know and yes they can sense heart bit of human or even small animal.

http://www.range-r.com/tech/theory.htm
This one?