I wonder how long before 16bit sdr units for above hf

Right now there are good 16 bit sdr devices like the elad products etc.. for the hf and below band.

Nothing yet for the upper side. There are some good choices now for the 12bit but 16 bit turnkey systems would be great something like a super airspy pro 16bit using linear technology low noise high dynamic range adc units and fpga

Www.linear.com makes some interesting adc chips

Hint youssef any plans for a high end pro airspy model?

The RFSpace NetSDR with internal downconverter (free option right now) has a "specified" upper frequency limit of 550 MHz, but in actuality works with little or no degradation to above 1200 MHz. There are some birdy issues in some specific frequency ranges, but images are pretty much non-existent.

The Net SDR is 16 bit in the widest bandwidth mode, and 24 bit in 1 MHz wide or narrower mode.

The announced, but not yet shipping, RFSpace CloudSDR and CloudIQ are 24 bit, and go to 1200 MHz or higher. Prices have been bandied about, but not confirmed yet.

T!

There are some very interesting products in the pipeline. The challenge for operation above HF is maintaining that dynamic range. At HF, you can direct sample with the ADCs, but once you get into VHF and above you still need to down-convert. Maintaining the dynamic range through the down-converter is really challenging. When considering all of the different factors (image rejection, IMD, phase noise, spurious mixing products and so on), it is very difficult to get more than around 65-70 dB of dynamic range from the down converter for a low cost solution. The higher you go in frequency, the harder it gets because good phase noise becomes more and more difficult to maintain. so you can see sharp declines in performance once you get up to high UHF. Certainly the low cost integrated tuners just can't cut it.
The CloudSDR uses a down converter, but the performance isn't clear from the spec because they only quote the SFDR of the ADC. Price is quoted at $999, which looks pretty good for what you get. It's going to be fascinating to see what appears over the next few years

I am a bit suspect about that CloudSDR. very vague details regarding specs for the VHF/UHF bands.

I suspect they are using an NXP Tuner chip.

You can try them by downloading the client at

SDRanywhere

Seem to perform pretty good over the entire range.

The Pervices Crimson SDR was a 16bit I think. I don't feel like spending 6k on it though, I feel SDRs would get better soon and not have to pay as much.

BaofengScanner said:

The Pervices Crimson SDR was a 16bit I think. I don't feel like spending 6k on it though, I feel SDRs would get better soon and not have to pay as much.

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For half that kind of money you could do something like the Tektronix RSA306.

While high performance gear seems expensive, in reality the stuff you can get for reasonable prices today would have been untouchable by mere mortals 10 to 20 years ago.

T!

Token said:

For half that kind of money you could do something like the Tektronix RSA306.

While high performance gear seems expensive, in reality the stuff you can get for reasonable prices today would have been untouchable by mere mortals 10 to 20 years ago.

T!

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Exactlty it amazing, but that's why I'm not getting it now, still somewhat newer technology that will eventually be like the commodore or powerPC soon enough. Thanks for the tektronix recommendation though I been looking for a decent priced nice SDR.

BaofengScanner said:

Exactlty it amazing, but that's why I'm not getting it now, still somewhat newer technology that will eventually be like the commodore or powerPC soon enough. Thanks for the tektronix recommendation though I been looking for a decent priced nice SDR.

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I was not particularly recommending the RSA, I was only pointing to it as an example of technology. While the 306 is interesting for some applications it is not really what I would call a radio (and it is not marketed as such). There are no 3rd party radio like GUIs to use it, and the Tektronix software has some pretty specific focus. It is great if you are looking at digital signals or radars, but the only audio demodulation plug ins do AM and FM. CW and SSB are not supported.

T!