Ian,
While I am unaware of how qualitative the Lime Micro Systems Chips are,
what worry’s me about these GNU Radio / USRP Alternatives:
- Fairwaves UmTRX
- Lime Micro MyriadRF
- Loctronix A-2300
Is that all the above listed SDR devices utilizes a 1 product company,
and
the last one we had was Elonics who produced the famous RTLSDR stick.
But Elonics is bankrupt, so whoever is purchasing / designing around
those
chipsets, I’d be nervous.
Also, for the price of just 1 Lime MicroSystems chip, $110 as of this
date,
is still $30 more than purchasing 2 Analog Device chipsets who offers
you
MORE Radio Frequencies.
The BladRF & ALL of EpiqSolutions products suffers from this as well as
they utilize the Lime Microsystems Chipset.
I avoid purchasing Ettus R. Products since he he got the Open
Source
Community to design applications around his USRP that he claimed to "
Release the PCB board layout files " but never did.
Its documented here:
I also got the schematics for my TV set and my video recorder.
But that’s for service and repair. It’s not free hardware.
As far as I know the USRP designs are copyrighted and not under a free
hardware license. Correct?
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnuradio/2011-01/msg00533.html
Other than that, the UmTRX is what I’d purchase as your purchasing the
support/brillance of the Russians behind it.