Example of RF amplifier for DAB

Interesting ? Yes but... before thinking to use this kind of gizmo after the USRP, the RF signal need some manipulations, avoiding any disturbance on the radio spectrum.

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Output Spectrum

Usually when somebody need to transmit easily voices information on the radio spectrum he use an oscillator directly modulated and tuned on the working frequency. To avoid unwanted signals outside the working band (harmonics) low pass filters are mainly used after this oscillator and amplifiers.

It is also possible to use RF mixer to up convert the frequency from the modulated oscillator on a higher band when intermediate line is used to carry the RF signal from the modulator stage to the up-converter / power amplifier. (This mainly used on Terrestrial link, Uplink Earth Station, Vsat terminals) This allow also frequency agility on a larger band. In this case a mix of high pass and low pass or bandpass filters are used to keep the energy where it should be !

USRP boards propose different band coverage and use direct output from the DA or converted RF spectrum. As we use digital modulation (OFDM in this case... including amplitude modulation) we need also a good linearity on the RF chain to avoid distortion. The amplifiers will not work near their saturation point but where we get the best linearity. (I & Q frame are send from the PC to the USRP FPGA, after computing, signal is applied to DA's to generate the modulation. In the case of RF mixing for band conversion we should also ensure that we do not introduce too much additional phase noise (mainly from the up-converter local oscillator)

Basic TX