RS-HFIQ 5W HF SDR Transceiver

I'm thinking about getting my feet wet in SDR and have been looking around to see what is out there. Who has one of these? It appears that with the 50w amp and some of the other goodies it might make a pretty neat station.
Amateur Radio: RS-HFIQ 5W HF SDR Transceiver (hobbypcb.com)

 

You might want to check out the Hermes Lite 2

 

The RS-HFIQ appears to be a sound-card connected direct conversion SDR front end. Passing IQ data through an analog audio cable is now old technology.

The Hermes Lite 2 QRP transceiver has a a much newer SDR design. It's a network-connected direct sampling SDR, capable of receiving multiple HF slices of wider panadapter waterfalls than sound-card radios. No audio cables required, and you can operate it from a remote computer over a network connection. Only temporarily sold-out, but a new production run of 200 is reportedly scheduled for next month.

The specs on the older sound-card design look pretty good. But due to the HL2's much higher sampling rate plus processing gain, the working dynamic range of the Hermes Lite 2 is just as good in practice.​

 

Good stuff! I'm interested in SDR, but know little about it. Now I'm glad I asked the question. If I'm going to buy something, I would rather have the newer design- the cost is about the same between the RS-HFIQ and the Hermes Lite 2. I'm going to continue to look around and see what I find. I may see if I can get one out of the next batch of Hermes Lite 2 radios.

 

I have a couple Limes & an HL2. For HF, HL2 hands down is great. In a couple weeks, I will hook up for the pure signal on my amp.

Ed

 

They are taking pre orders for the Hermes Lite 2 now, so I ordered a radio, filter board and a case.

 

HL2 is the low cost way to go, unless you can find an old Anan 10 or 10E.
Anything USB has too much latency through the USB sub system in computers.
The Flex 3000 is the cheapest real sdr rig, 100 watts and a built in tuner, performance is good, costs about $600.00 used.

 

The direct conversion SDR transceivers that emulate USB stereo sound cards (mcHF, et.al.) for IQ can also have low latency, depending on your computers SDR software. But the newer direct sampling rigs have more panadapter bandwidth(s) and cleaner Tx.