Airspy HF+

Airspy HF+ (Airspy HF Plus) is a joint effort between Airspy and Itead Studio. As pocket SDR uses a very high dynamic range front-end, also brings more performance from passive mixers with an excellent polyphase harmonic rejection structure. With its strong signal handling capability the Airspy HF+ is the ideal companion for light portable operation. Two RF tuner; for HF the receiver achieves excellent performance by means of a low-loss preselection filter, high linearity LNA, high linearity tunable RF filter, and a mixer that rejects up to the 21st harmonic. The 6 dB-stepped AGC gain is fully controlled by the software running in the DSP which optimizes the gain distribution in real time for optimal sensitivity and linearity; for VHF excellent FM performance is achieved by using optimized signal paths composed of band filters, high linearity LNA with a stepped AGC switchable in 3 dB-steps and fully controlled by the firmware running in the DSP. Extended VHF coverage is assured by a second Band-III tuner up to 260 MHz, but with reduced performance. For an evolution of this architecture see Airspy HF+ Discovery.

Airspy HF+ receiver architecture on HF path

The analog to digital converter (ADC) is a 4th order multi-bit noise shaping topology, sampling rate is determined by a control algorithm running in the embedded DSP. This technique adjusts the sampling rate depending on the tuning frequency with the goal of avoiding the disturbances and spurs generated by the switching discrete-time sections of the IF-ADC. Once the IF signal is digitalized, the I/Q stream is then frequency translated and processed with cascaded CIC and FIR decimation stages. After every stage, the sample rate is reduced and the resolution increased. The final signal at the output has 18bit resolution and an alias rejection performance of 108 dBc. The data is then scaled to 16bit and sent to the Micro-Controller for streaming over USB. The DSP core also implement a flexible and acoustically pleasant noise reduction algorithms, applications range from high-fidelity hiss removal for broadcast Wide-FM signals to unburying weak SSB signals from the HF noise floor.

Airspy HF+ features :

Frequency adjustment capability. Up to 660 kHz alias and image free for 768 ksps IQ output. Four programmable GPIO. No drivers required, plug-and-play on Windows Vista, Seven, 8, 8.1 and 10, Linux, OSX. Supported hardware: PC, Raspberry-Pi 2 and 3, Odroid C1/2 and XU4, other single board computers (SBC). Fully open-source driver, multi-platform. You can easily customize the HF input with one of published modifications: shunting an input capacitor would get the full band available for VLF listening, a custom filter can also be inserted between the SMA and the tuner block, for example.

Airspy HF+ in comparison with Airspy Discovery :

For a wideband Airspy SDR receiver see also the Airspy R2 model, 24-1800 MHz coverage in a single box with 10 MHz bandwidth I/Q output.

Airspy HF+ price

We have collected for your convenience the Airspy HF+ sale price (Euro) and its trend over time. Useful to guarantee a cheaper purchase of this radio and to put it for sale in the second-hand market. Of course offers, accessories, warranty terms and conditions can lead to different figures.

Price	Date	Condition
EUR 259.00	2021-jun	Brand-new
EUR 169.00 (199USD)	2020-may	Brand-new
EUR 175.00 (199USD)	2019-dec	Brand-new
EUR 169.00 (199USD)	2018-dec	Brand-new