Airspy HF+ Discovery

[P-40 Warhawk]

This morning when I opened my email I saw this letter from Airspy ( Dear Airspy fans,

Thank you for your patience and your encouragement during all these years! We are pleased to announce the availability of the Airspy HF+ Discovery on pre-order. We got everything ready for delivery in about one month.

How did we come to this? Do you remember the high performance HF Pre-selector project we started a few months ago? It was an opportunity for us to Discover the full potential of the Harmonic Rejection Mixer design when used in certain conditions. With the help of our partners Itead Studio, ST Micro and friends, most notably Leif Asbrink SM5BSZ, we could squeeze a new and improved front-end with a lot of pre-selectors along with a new firmware into a state of the art radio with unprecedented performance and form factor.

We created a coupon code for you, Airspy Fans, so you can get $50 off at Itead and Airspy.US when you pre-order this unit. The coupon is limited to 100 units at each reseller, then the regular price applies. First come, first served!

Coupon: AIRSPY2019 )
Now I think it's grate that they have a improved HF+ and I ordered one . The only complaint that I have is that the Dam collage kid's couldn't leave well enough alone and keep the two RF connectors , No they had to take one way . Dam Collage Kid's

[JEL]

Yeah that coupon-code went below the noise-floor quick :/
It was already expired when I tried it on the 24th (so sales must be through the roof, which I believe is good since that focuses 3rd-party content-creation on this device and/or SDR# rather than scattering, thereby thinning, it across multiple devices)

They state delivery is estimated to begin in about a month, so with a bit of luck july will be like mini-Christmas for a lot of us (hopefully )

I actually think the one antenna-input is a good idea, since then users can choose their own option for antenna-selectors if needed. This may keep price a bit lower on the device (And also have less things that can break. After all; It IS made in China)

Anyway, I'm hoping Airspy will have a great success with this one (since if they do, so do we end-users )

[Username]

Hi
I am intend to buy them. So w hat is the benefit with an Spyverter?
The Spyverter is just an Up converter?!
Thanks

[hotpaw2]

Spyverter is an upconverter, not needed with the Airspy HF+ or HF Discovery, but perhaps useful for an RTL-SDR.

[Username]

I guessed that. Does the Airspy HF+ Discovery have an internal Amp?
I dont know if the cheap HF Magneting Loop have a Amp inside.

[aurgathor]

I guessed that. Does the Airspy HF+ Discovery have an internal Amp?

The RF chip should have an RF amplifier portion inside, (an equivalent of a dual-gate MOSFET commonly found in some analog tuners) but if you are thinking of a separate LNA on the input -- I do not know. My guess is no -- the RF front end should be sensitive enough to not need additional amplification with any reasonable signal.

If you have a very week signal or a long antenna cable, then any amplifier should be placed close to the antenna.

[aurgathor]

I may have been wrong in the above post -- I'm currently reading the Discovery's specs, and under both HF tuner and VHF tuner they prominently mention "high linearity LNA" -- however, without looking at the PCB or schematics (and the latter is most certainly not public) it's hard to tell what those high linearity LNAs may entail.

[Username]

I will order one. The HackRF Sucks in therms of Reception even with an Amp.
The "traditional" SDR with an Upconverter works ok but the strength Signals like Radio come truth.

[aurgathor]

I will order one.

I ordered one Thursday night from itead.cc, but no order confirmation or any kind of feedback until I sent them an email a few minutes ago, asking about my order. Hopefully this gets my order moving.

[Username]

Me to and hopefully no import Tax are add.