Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Practicality of DC-light RF front-end?

[Marcus D. Leech]

Johnathan Corgan wrote:

> 
> Sure, I'll grant you that; I was just saying that software defined
> radio, beginning with digital IF, has become real.  Until 6 GHz ADCs
> with huge dynamic range and associated FPGAs are the norm, we need a
> more conventional RF front end to feed a signal to a digital IF
> processor.  There doesn't seem to be a plethora of off-the-shelf open
> designs one could copy to create one, however, hence my interest.
>

Yup.

I'll point out that "real" radio astronomers use digitizers with amazing
  bandwidth, but poor dynamic range.  It's not unusual to find several
  Ghz of bandwidth, but only 1 or 2 bits in the A/D.  And an ornate and
  elaborate correlator array to go with it...

> 
> You can buy PC104+ single board PCs, with integrated PCI/Ethernet/USB,
> for a few hundred dollars; it's getting hard to find cheaper, stripped
> down ones you could press into service as a "controller" for a SDR
> peripheral.  But they do run Linux and can do anything a PC can do.
> 

Probably overkill.

Noone has answered my question yet about the expected MSRP for
  the USRP.

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