Official bladeRF forum

I use these 400 to 1000 MHz log-periodic antennas for UHF.

http://www.wa5vjb.com/products1.html

You can get one with the SMA connector soldered on from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Ramsey-LPY41-Peri ... B0002NRK8K

The power output of the bladeRF is only about 4 milliwatts (+6 dBm) CW. When using some kind of digital modulation, the average power is going to be even less.

Ron

You can also use a discone antenna, I have one which covers from 25 MHz to 1300 MHz. I bought it for 90 € so around 125 $.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discone_antenna

http://www.cbplus.com/cat/product1014/product_info.html

drmpeg wrote:I use these 400 to 1000 MHz log-periodic antennas for UHF.

http://www.wa5vjb.com/products1.html

You can get one with the SMA connector soldered on from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Ramsey-LPY41-Peri ... B0002NRK8K

The power output of the bladeRF is only about 4 milliwatts (+6 dBm) CW. When using some kind of digital modulation, the average power is going to be even less.

Ron

I apologize for "hijacking" this thread, but my question is related to the discussion at hand. What kind of amplifier(s) has/have people been using with their bladeRF?

What frequency and power level are you interested in?

If it's one of the amateur radio bands, then there's some amplifiers here:

http://www.downeastmicrowave.com/cat-frame.htm

If you can afford some Cadillac level products, there's a good selection here:

http://www.kuhne-electronic.de/en/produ ... fiers.html

The +6 dBm output of the bladeRF can be a problem (and it's even less at higher frequencies) since many amplfiers want 100 milliwatts (+20 dBm) of drive. Here's a small driver amplifier design.

http://www.w1ghz.org/small_proj/GVA-84_amplifier.pdf

From this page:

http://www.w1ghz.org/small_proj/small_proj.htm

Ron

What do y'all use for 2.4ghz yagi? I'm seeing a lot of expensive options and a lot of cheap options both with mixed reviews. I'm not interested in high gain, I just want it to be highly directional.

On other frequencies I'm getting a really great results from the telescoping antenna sold with the rtl-sdr blog version of the cheapo dongle. http://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-dvb-t-dongles/ I'm afraid to use it to transmit.

What do you all think about the ANT500 and ANT700 that are sold with the HackRF? I plan on staying in the ISM bands, should I just resign myself to getting frequency specific antennas? Are telescoping antennas worth the money?