Ultra Low voltage for LM3914

[nikineil]

Hi

For an RF detector project, I need to ensure that 10 LEDs, which are connected to a LM3914 Dot/Bar Display driver, are lit up in steps of 1mV each, starting from 1mV to 10mV. I know the minimum voltage needed to trigger the first LED is 0.125V. Since, I am a circuit novice, I was wondering if somebody could help me with this please?

Thanks

 

[Audioguru]

Impossible because the signal level is much too low.
Why don't you amplify then rectify the signal?

The LM3914 is designed for audio or DC inputs and might not work with RF inputs (what frequency?).

 

[nikineil]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I am talking about DC voltages of 1 to 10mV that were measured from the receive antenna using a multimeter. The frequency is 1880MHz. How would a circuit like that look like? as in what sort of amplifiers and recitifers am I looking at? Again, sorry for the denseness, but my knowledge on circuits is quite low.

 

[Audioguru]

1880MHz are microwaves. You need a microwave amplifier and rectifier circuit.
I have designed, built and seen many amplifiers but I have never seen a microwave amplifier.

 

[nikineil]

I just need some sort of an amplifier circuit that would amplify 1 to 10mV voltage to about a 1V. How would I go about that?

 

[Audioguru]

I work with audio frequencies up to 30kHz. The 1880MHz frequency you have is 63 thousand times higher. Also you want a gain of 1000.
Sorry, I cannot help you. Maybe there is a cell phones engineer here who can help you find an amplifier and rectifier circuit.