Rockland 5100 vintage DDS frequency synthesizer teardown & test
Channel: FFcossag
Date: 06/01/2016

The Rockland 5100, more commonly known as the Wavetek 5100, is probably one of the earliest signal generators based on direct digital synthesis that you could get. Initially released in 1972 (approx.), it sports an 11-bit signed D/A converter, a quite reasonably specced 8 MHz TCXO, and back then, a price tag that was probably not for the faint of heart.

In this video, we take a look at the insides of the unit without going into too much detail about its theory of operation, we check some seriously low frequencies on an oscilloscope, and we hook it up to the HP 339A distortion analyser to check its analogue performance at a few points from 10 Hz to 100 kHz.

Manual: http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/test/Wavetek_5100.pdf
Manual (mirror): https://ffseb.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/wavetek_5100.pdf

--
THIS VIDEO IS RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
To the extent possible under law, I have waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights to this work, according to the Creative Commons CC0 affirmer. This means that anyone is free to use this content in any manner they see fit, without my objection. However, the video may still contain copyrighted content (images, video, audio, software, etc.) that does not belong to me. WHILE I DO NOT RESERVE THE RIGHTS OF ANY PART OF THIS VIDEO, THE COPYRIGHT OF THIRD-PARTY CONTENT STILL BELONGS TO ITS RESPECTIVE OWNERS. THE COPYRIGHT OF THIRD-PARTY CONTENT IS NOT WAIVED. THE VIDEO IS PROVIDED AS-IS, AND I DO NOT PROVIDE ANY GUARANTEE OF ITS QUALITY.