ah, good call on the current source not working.
Well I am not really worried about close in phase noise, but given that the part itself costs 90$, I might as well pay a little extra IMO. I wanted to cascade two of them, my only worry is that nearby signals might saturate such an amplifier.
Since I want to cascade them, I figure paying a little extra for my anti-aging scheme is worth it, as the cost is better absorbed.
I made the circuit using a LT3090, LT3045 , LT1014 (have some), 74HC590 (counter), LTC6993 (oscillator, have some), LTC2924 (sequencer), AD7801 (have some).. parts been layin around for years so why not.
I want to etch the board then refuse an old RF can from a defunct spectrum analyzer to house the amplifiers. I was going to deadbug them upside down next to each other and drill holes in the RF can to stick hardline into them, (rg141 or smaller), then solder the hardline directly to the input pins. Very curious to how it will work, I also salvaged some RF feedthroughs.. call it an experiment in guerilla microwave design. I suspect the RG036 I have would work very well, unfortunately the SMA adapters for it are 30$ each... gonna have to use the standard sizes.
For the grounding of the packages I was gonna lay em upside down on a piece of copper and put a strip of copper that's the same dimensions as the center pad across it, then have it branch out and solder it down (kinda like a bowtie pasta shape ground overpass).
I'm guessing that a RF PCB would cost like >100$.. do they sell fixed dielectric constant ceramic PCBs that have photo resist on them for etching? I also wonder if carbide would work on drilling holes in these, and if a copperset via kit would crack it from the anvil and via deformation.
and yes, I like working on tiny things