BladeRF Transverter Board

BladeRF Transverter Board

The XB-200 BladeRF Transverter Board is a block up-down converter that greatly expands the bladeRF’s usable frequency range down, making the platform suitable for HF/VHF applications. [Compatible only with bladeRF 1.0 x40 and x115]

Compatibility:

• Compatible only with bladeRF 1.0 x40 and x115

Kit contains:

• 1 LF/MF/HF/VHF transverter (60kHz to 300MHz)

Key features:

• Filtered frequency range down to 60kHz
• RX and TX filters for 50MHz-54MHz (6 meter band), 149MHz-159MHz band, and 206-235MHz bands
• High-Q, low-ESR passive components
• RF switch pass-through design
• Shielded, low-phase noise LO synthesizer
• 16 configurable GPIO pins (from C API and HDL)

The XB-200 is a block up-down converter that greatly expands the bladeRF’s lower frequency range. The transverter’s lower end frequency range extends down to 60kHz making the transverter board suitable for LF/MF/HF/VHF applications.

The transverter has low insertion-loss, low-noise RF bypass switches that enable the bladeRF to seamlessly enable or bypass the transverter without having to dismount the expansion board. The RF switches provide an easy way of expanding the frequency range, not replacing it, meaning that the transverter board does not have to be unplugged to use the bladeRF’s original frequency range. RX can easily be at 1MHz, while TX is at 3GHz.

The RX and TX paths each have a set of 3 filters, at the 50MHz-54MHz (6 meter band), 149MHz-159MHz band, and 206-235MHz bands. There are also pairs of SMA connectors that will let users plug their own band filters into the RF path. To achieve really high filter performance, all of the passives in the RF paths are high-Q, low-ESR, low-DCR, and at most 2% tolerant components.

The LO synthesizer has been upgraded to an ADF4351 to improve the phase noise and total system SNR. The synthesizer also draws its reference from the attached bladeRF 1.0’s factory calibrated VCTCXO.

The transverter also features, C API and HDL controlled GPIO pins. These GPIOs are fully configurable IO pins that allow for the transverter to control amplifiers, filters, antenna systems, LEDs, etc.