Low cost LNA recommendations?

Useful information regarding antennas for SDR products.
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npnrj
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Dec 23, 2017 8:36 am

Low cost LNA recommendations?

Post by npnrj » Tue Jan 02, 2018 8:44 am

I want to experiment with some home-made antenna designs that need an LNA (e.g. like the Dressler) so does anyone have any recommendations for a decent(ish) low cost LNA? There are lots available on Amazon, but they all seem to be from strange Chinese vendors and don't even have a detailed specification - however they are very inexpensive. Has anyone tried any of these?

I'm also aware of the LNA4ALL which seems to be a decent spec, although it's a bit fiddly to order as they don't take credit cards, and so far I haven't found anyone distributing it who does. But I guess I could always revive my Paypal account which I haven't used for ages. Has anyone used one of these?

Any suggestions welcome,

Thanks,

Nick
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g1hbe
Posts: 494
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:28 pm
Location: Cheshire, UK

Re: Low cost LNA recommendations?

Post by g1hbe » Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:53 am

I've heard good reports of the LNA4ALL, but never used one. Do you really need an external LNA? The RSP's have very sensitive front-ends when the internal LNA is turned on and applying even more gain may cause overloading effects. Perhaps you have a very long run of feeder? (Sorry if I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs...) :mrgreen:

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Andy

npnrj
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Dec 23, 2017 8:36 am

Re: Low cost LNA recommendations?

Post by npnrj » Tue Jan 02, 2018 12:33 pm

I expect feeder length will become an issue soon as I want to move my discone antenna away from my house and all the nasty noise generated by the home electronics. But I was also interested in some of the designs for small(ish) broadband antennae such as the Dressler which someone reverse engineered a while back I built the antenna but it requires an LNA. Plus I assume the RSP designers wouldn't have provided a bias T if they didn't expect people to play with LNAs?

In the longer term I may experiment with some of the radio astronomy ideas; I have a friend a couple of miles away in West London who's had some success on the H band, and that requires a couple of LNAs and a filter. He got his LNAs from someone in the US and they were pretty expensive (I guess because they're extremely low noise) but I'm not inclined to pay more than the cost of the SDR for LNAs unless I've first played with something inexpensive to get comfortable with the principles.

Nick
Last edited by npnrj on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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