A real time delay microwave measuring system

The recent development of microwave solid state delay lines has generated a requirement for a multiple purpose instrumentation system that provides precise readout of frequency, insertion loss, magnetic field and time delay. These new devices employing yttrium iron garnet as the delay medium have magnetically controllable propagation characteristics that permit both fixed and variable time delays that range from essentially zero up to several microseconds. In this paper a description of the design, assembly and testing of a real time delay microwave measuring system is presented. A discussion of the overall performance is given together with the test results indicating the accuracy that has been attained.