In total 78 backers, with less than 30 units for HAM version.
At last now Lime know (have indication) what is target market ratio
and can take care in accordance 
I am not on board, but for curiosity may purchase one on second hand market 
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@9a4db - Djani,
The price does make one pause if for an impulse buy, but I can tell you - and Iām really not kidding - that the LimeRFE REALLY and FINALLY makes the LimeSDR function as a QRP transceiver. Iām really impressed by it and would definitely buy one now that Iām test driving one. I still need to put it through its paces in for digital modes and voice over this weekend and the weeks coming up, but FINALLY there is a RF gain block that truly covers the spectra that the Lime operates in and has the ability to function on its own, or drive other smaller amplifiers in the 50W range - plenty of power to be heard for QRP operations. The RFE is meeting the published specs and Iām impressed by its preselector filtering to remove FM band images that you ordinarily get running the LimeSDR stock.
I know where youāre at on it - - the price is āup thereā, and historically Hams are very budget-tightā¦Hell, I know I am and it kept me from reaching for my plasticā¦and that in of itself is a skewing the data because if the RFE was within ābeer budgetā prices ($150 to $250) there wouldnāt be anymore LimeRFEs for sale for Ham bandsā¦Theyād sell out and there would be a backlog for another production run or two. But now having actually run an RFE and really excited about putting it through its paces on the other modes and voice, itās a very good value for the money if youāre going to stay with the LimeSDR.
I think the thing that makes me more āsoldā on the RFE is itās performance in the 2m and higher bands as well as this cool āWidebandā mode it can do (1 - 1000 MHz or 1000 - 4000MHz)ā¦Itās rock solid up there. No fiddling around with toys to pump up the gain, no PAs getting hot enough to unsolder themselvesā¦Just nice flat PA gainā¦It is impressive.
Just my dollar and 20 cents on the matter, Djaniā¦This is where Iām at on the RFEā¦Good value for the money - definitely.
73 de Marty, KN0CK
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Thanks for the positive words, Marty.
In an ideal world we would have been able to produce the LimeRFE for less, but it just wasnāt possible to do this and keep the coverage we have with it. We could have perhaps made it just cover HF-70cm or maybe 2m-13cm, but then I donāt think it would have been quite as compelling.
Some comparisons have been made with the pricing of COTS radios which cover a subset of the bands, but then this is much easier to do, with a reduced BOM count and complexity, plus cheaper FR4 instead of Rogers PCB substrate. In addition to the difference in coverage, those off-the-shelf radios wonāt support DVB, along with various other more interesting present and future modes.
in short, I donāt see anything else on the market which offers the same capabilities and, sure, you could rig together a bunch of surplus microwave PAs, drivers, filters and coaxial relays etc. However, while fun for some, this is not exactly convenient and to do this with new parts it would cost a lot more.
I commend you on a great product. I just personally have no use above 440 MHz at this time & have an FT-857 board for my Lime & some other junk to make it to an HF to 440 transceiver.
I just wish there was some decent software for HF TX.
Tried downloading SDRAngel again to see if I could wrap my brain around it & it was immediately flagged with Trojans, upon unzipping.
Simon seems uninterested in HF TX.
Such a shame that it is so difficult to get decent software for HF TX.
I guess itās time for me to abandon the Lime & go a different direction.
Ed
Was pretty sure others were using these on HF. I need to take a look again - itās been a while. Another option is also on the horizon: seems like PiHPSDR will soon have LimeSDR support, which should make the combination of this and an RPi (or LimeNET Micro!) paired with the official Touch Screen, a pretty neat solution.
Thank You Marty,
Regarding the HAM side 449 + approx 10-15% import + 20-25% on whole goes well over 600 USD for HAM in EU which is show stopperā¦ after all less than 30 dedicated HAM units
out of 50 available, show the reality.
On profi side, for me no any dedicated aviation band 118 - 135 or 1020 - 1090 available,
and on āwidebandā ports - no easy way to include some dedicated blocks. No show eitherā¦
Therefore for me something like this example can be the solution:
Take in consideration that:
GRF4001 + HMC637 together can bring wideband 1W driver up to 6 GHz
On LNA side I am long time happy user of LNA4ALL and LNA4HF always have few
available on hand (up to 4 GHz)
Any way the RFE was nice project from LIME team and I can only thank them for that.
73
Djani
Ed,
I tested SDR Console 3.0.11 on Lime TX on 7 MHz and thatās goes like expected.
Can easy go on air with proper cutoff filter before next stage PA.
73
Already having an Udoo X86 tied in with the Lime, bandswitching, TX/RX & the such, I would favor a Wondows application. Everything is ready to go.
SDR# is full of Trojans. SDRAngel is like an alien language to me & not at all intuitive (To me at least). Seems that Simon is hesitant to even try.
I am up the $1200 creek without HF, of which I originally started this project for.
Maybe itās just time to sell all of it.
Ed
I would be surprised if all of HF worked properly, as Simon states that it doesnāt. Tomorrow, I will try running it through all the paces. Thank you for the first encouragement.
Ed
Ed, please take care that I am using Lime USB not mini.
Yes. I have 2 of the LimeSDR-USBs I doubt I would get a Mini, as my interests are mainly HF.
Tomorrow, I will get the test bench set up & run it through the paces. THank you for this ray of hope !!!
Ed
@AA7QQ - Ed,
Donāt give up on the Lime - Iām going to give you the reasons why:
1.) What SDR gives you the tuning bandwidth (100kHz to 3.8 GHz) on one board and has the receive dynamic range of SDRs that cost easily twice what the Lime is? There isnāt oneā¦
2.) Interests change and so will your setup. Iāve been known as the primary HF Geek for the LimeSDR for years, but all of a sudden Iāve begun to get interested in satellite work with the Lime because of its 2.4 GHz uplink capabilities for some of the satellites out there. I donāt have anything set up for it, but Iām looking at Fall as the time I get it running - I have the real estate to do it here and no real reason not to. Same goes for V/UHFā¦it may not be your cup of Joe now, but there will be a time - - like when they make an app to do DMR for SDRs (thatās another recent rage for me in UHF) - - that will get you sucked into that like nothing else. About the satellitesā¦Simon is busting a nugget to support them there so thatās where his software is really working well: V/U/SHF - - WITH THE LIME.
3.) Simonās software isnāt the only answer. @yt7pwr, Goran, has been working on his SDR# based Windows app for receive and transmit and may have HF running on it by now - - I need to verify that datapoint. ( @yt7pwr - Goran, can you weigh-in or confirm this?)
4.) Youāve invested a lot of time and dough on your Lime setup. To leave it all behind would be like restoring a 70ās model Firebird and getting it just about where you want it and then ditching the whole effort because you canāt get the big-block engine for it and the small-block thatās in there just doesnāt excite youā¦Donāt throw away your time, find ways to keep making it what you want.
5.) The only other SDRs out there that is compliant with Windows and does HF is Flex, Expert Engineering (SunSDR), and Apache Labs (ANAN series radios)ā¦But then youāre an appliance operatorā¦Not the innovator you are now. Thereās a difference. Donāt let your gray matter dry out turning into a Flex or Apache followerā¦Keep innovating with the Lime.
6.) Iām going to post a challenge today that will either set a fire underneath Simon or will make him breathe easierā¦Be looking for that post todayā¦Please do stay tunedā¦ 
Keep on plugging on with the Lime, Edā¦I would hate to see you leave the forumā¦Your efforts inspired a lot of people - they may not have followed your path completely, but they saw that it was possible and it kept them riveted to your posts.
73 de Marty, KN0CK
Thank you, Marty. Well, today I start a different project. Stuff all the Lime stuff in a box for the move to FL in a couple months & build a Limit capable aluminum Small Transmitting Loop.
Putting the SDR aside for now.
I surely will stay on the forums.
Ed
Ed
HF and VHF running fine. I do not have HF permission so only RX (using Mini, take a look at: https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html?preset&callsign=yt7pwr&timerange=86400).
On 2m, using LimeSDR-USB board I manage to complete TX with about 20W output power into 6m 11el yagi (YU7EF design) and establish few connection using FT8 mode. FT8 is nice for testing because is very sensitive to phase variance (USB data transfer can be sometimes problematic).
Anyway, HF now working with two channels (today tested FT8 and FT4 at the same time), CPU usage is modest (64bit version, vary from 2-7% on AMD 1500X 8 core CPU) but as always there are bugs 
I canāt estimate when new release will be uploaded but hope soon as possible.
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@yt7pwr - Goran,
Run the output to a dummy load and make sure the gateware version is 21 (for now)ā¦
73 de Marty, KN0CK
I can do even better: run into spectrum analyzer and see any unwanted signals coming out. Biggest chalenge is 30MHz local oscillator on TX side. At some point in time I can remember TX calibration works fine removing 30MHz leakage but latest LMS API do not allow RX or TX calibration on HF (signal to small message).
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Iāll have the LimeRFE soon for development but canāt find the API / library information. Any clues please?
Thereās an application that is used to steer the LimeRFE that was provided to the early Beta Testers that didnāt get a fully built RFE (had everything for HF/VHF/UHF, but not for Cellular and WiFi) and that app (I believe) used a lot of the LimeSuite to make things work. I wasnāt that well set up for compiling this for Windows and ended up compiling the app for Linux, but Iām sure youāll be able to determine how to set it up from the code patch. Here is the link that was sent to me awhile back:
If you look here you will also see the LimeRFE has its own subdirectory and patch of code within LimeSuite:
I have the Windows app to control the LimeRFE that I can send you, too - but not until I get back to the house. I have it compiled from source and working on Linux, too, so the app works in either environment. I will send you that app later today (Central Time).
Finally, here are a couple of docs that may prove helpful, too - Iāve made them shareable so you can review them in advance:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zGMT_DpLSAiDNnP7sixrczDyGS9XP_Kg?usp=sharing
Hope this information helps - Good luck on getting the RFE going and let me know how it runs on HF when you get thereā¦
73 de Marty, KN0CK
You know whatā¦That Quick Start Guide, in Chapter 9, has ALL the API calls for the LimeRFE and theyāre part of LimeSuite if you have the latest version that has the LimeRFE subdirectory in there. So you may already be set up and not need the singular app, but Iāll send it to you anyway later today. But check out Chapter 9 of the Quick Start Guide for more info on the API calls for the 'RFE.
73 de Marty, KN0CK