Specifications
- Guaranteed frequency range: 150kHz to 240MHz and 420MHz to 1.9GHz
- Typical frequency coverage: 150kHz to 260MHz and 410MHz to 2.05GHz
- TCXO specified at 0.5ppm (in practice about 1.5ppm)
- 192kHz sampling rate
- Extremely simple hardware setup, just two connections, an “in” and an “out”:
- Standard SMA female antenna port
- USB 1.x type A male connection
- Eleven discrete hardware front end filters including:
- 6MHz 3dB bandwidth (10MHz at -40dB) SAW filter for the 2m band.
- 20MHz 3dB bandwidth (42MHz at -40dB) SAW filter for the 70cm band
- Third- and fifth-order LC bandpass filters for other bands
- Front end LNA OIP3 30dB
- Typical noise figures:
- 50MHz 2.5dB
- 145MHz 3.5dB
- 435MHz 3.5dB
- 1296MHz 5.5dB
- Typical NFM 12dB SINAD measurements:
- 145MHz 0.15uV
- 435MHz 0.15uV
- No additional drivers required for Linux, OSX or Windows
- Integrated 5V bias T switchable from software
This is a complete redesign. To give you a flavour, the new FCD has well over twice as many parts in its bill of materials, (240 discreet components in fact!) To cater for this, the board is now a six-layer design (the original FCD was only double sided). To fit these extra parts in, they are soldered on both sides of the PCB. There are no fewer than eleven discrete front end preselection filters, including some serious SAW filters specifically chosen for the 2m and 70cm amateur bands. But that is just the start…
