Embarking on a journey into SDR. I wanted to make sure I get the right cables. For the USB I have ordered the micro-B style board. The cable I am looking at is like this one. I think the ferrites are a good idea but am I right? Is there a downside to having ferrites?
For the RF cables I am looking at this cable. But I don’t know which exact connectors are on the board and I don’t find that information. The question is will MHF1 work with the connectors on the LimeSDR?
This particular cable is good to 6GHz. There were some I saw that were only good to 3GHz. Digikey costs more but it is okay because it’s not so much more in this case.
BTW in case anyone needs to know the parts, I did find the BOM for the board with the part numbers.
@SabineT I thought you were responding to my post and so I looked at my link again and it turns out the SMA is a female and I think a male SMA is probably what I should get.
Do others agree that a male SMA is more appropriate?
This Picture on the Myriad homepage shows male type connectors on the board, so I would assume on the cable you need a female type U.FL connector.
The SMA connector is usually a female type.
You are right. You need female U.FL connector on the cable. Check this link for U.FL type you need for LimeSDR board.
SMA connector is up to you and depends on what you want to connect.
You’re right. I only saw the first picture when I clicked on the link and it showed a plug, but this is the SMA side. So it’s my fault to not click on the 2nd picture. mea culpa.
I did not think buying cables could be a little tricky. I know you linked to that cable to show the female u.fl connector. But as I learn more about RF cables I notice that the cable you linked has a reverse polarity male SMA. Does that also depend on what you want to connect?
Are there any connectors besides u.fl/mhf1 that are encountered most often or does this go back to “depends on what you want to connect”?
For those wondering reverse polarity is sometimes spec’d as RP-SMA or just Reverse.
Here's a bad photo of my UFL female to SMA female with 100 series.
Snyder's of Hanover mini pretzel for scale for some folks.
I bought a bunch as I will be making a patch panel with all connections including ref clock.
As for the other connector @Zack said correctly that “SMA connector is up to you and depends on what you want to connect.”
For example I cannibalized a wifi router (I swear I did not brick it, ok I did) and the antennas have female SMA. So I need to buy some adapters. But there is much unspoken in the world of radio and so that is one way to let newcomers know that you have to put in time to learn the basics. I am learning as I go.
Hey I know the ICAO alphabet so I’m getting there.
Looks solid. Did you end up getting 10 inch length or you opted for a custom order?
Also on the other topic regarding the SMA male or female question i tend to follow what other SDR boards end up using. So i can interchange the cabling among them. HackRF is SMA-Female so are the number of RTL-SDRs I have. Looking at the pictures Nuand BladeRF also has SMA-Fem on board as well as Ettus research Network series, also use SMA-F connectors. My oldie ICOM IC-701 uses UHF female for the antenna, it is not SMA but gives me an idea that it might be some kind of an accepted standard perhaps?
