I must be a magnet for anything SDR as a page from Digi-Key showed up on my smart phone. (LINK)
A new device from Analog Devices essentially is an SDR Transceiver on a chip and of course you need the FPGA to do the number crunching. Right now, the frequency range is 30MHz to 6GHz but in time, we will see the lower frequency end drop to cover the HF bands.
There are some additional refinements, like BW, as it can be selected for narrow or wide and the narrow is 12kHz -- we would probably like 10Hz -- in time my friend.
The price point is $500 in single lots but beyond this chip not too much more in the box. Final Done: A rig would be in the $3K to 4K range and this would position it in the market with the competition.
For the average homebrewer, this would be a huge hill to climb and likely most applications would be from commercial manufacturers in Chine (China) as they are faster, better and cheaper with more modern factories and lower labor rates. You can tariff all you want but FBC is a response to a TW (Tariff Whim).
Keep your eye on hackaday as likely some hams from Europe will be the 1st to build a ham band SDR using this chip. Immediately, the Chinese will steal the design and start mass producing the new SDR radio. I will go out on a limb and predict that US will be left in the dust as we simply lack the skill set and manufacturing capability to put this new device in a design and/or product!
Now I want to share a current project on the bench that involves a built radio that has been gathering dust. About 5 years ago I built a 60M radio using a surplus filter from a Yaesu Radio. The Filter Cf was 3.180MHz and was formerly housed in a FT-101 filter board. With an LO in the 8.5 MHz range a high side injection into a DBM yields 60M.
My twizzle on this project was to not use an encoder for tuning as the 60M band is channelized into 5 distinct channels and all USB. That was not too difficult but not "slick enough" as I had no requests for the code. I soon found out that the 60M is like a wasteland and not too many stations. Thus, another project on the storage shelf.
I actually liberated some parts from that radio, most recently, the small ST7735 display, that was initially used on the JF3HNB circular display. Acquiring the 3.2-inch ILI9341 display freed up the ST7735 now meaning a reinstall in the 60M radio. This prompted me to think beyond 60M. Suppose you built a channelized radio for other bands -- like 40M.
In my recent experiments with the Hybrid rig has centered on 40M. What this revealed, like it or not, 40M has become channelized. Nets now roost on the following frequencies: 7.074, 7.147, 7.155, 7.185, 7.192, 7.204, 7.208, 7.235, 7.240, 7.245, 7.255, and 7.260. If you have kept count that is a 12-position switch.
The retrofit involves code changes, BPF changes and LPF changes. In all about three hours of work. A good project for this long Memorial Day weekend. Stay tuned. Before you hit the send button I am looking at a clarifier control for when some of these nets move a kilohertz or two.
[No Pete is not suffering from early onset dementia with a suggestion for a channelized radio. Think operations like POTA or SOTA where but a few frequencies are used and since you have to lug the gear to the picnic table or up that hill, small size and light weight are a consideration. I regularly check into the Jefferson Noon Net at 7.204 MHz running only 3 watts. A channelized rig would work here.]
Them that know can make things go.
73's
Pete N6QW