Airspy R2 SDR

Airspy R2 SDR

The dependable VHF/UHF Radio for your projects

Airspy R2 sets a new level of performance in the reception of the VHF and UHF bands thanks to its low-IF architecture based on Rafael Micro R820T2 R860 and a high quality Oversampling 12bit ADC and state of the art DSP.

In Oversampling Mode, the Airspy R2 applies Analog RF and IF filtering to the signal path and increases the resolution to up to 16-bit using the software decimation. The net result is Spectacular Performance!

The coverage can be extended to the HF bands via the SpyVerter up-converter companion.

The Airspy R2, like its predecessor is 100% compatible with all the existing software including the de facto scanning standard SDR#, but also a number of popular software defined radio applications such as SDR-Radio, HDSDR, GQRX and GNU Radio.

For a more complete list of supported software, check the download page.

Typical Applications

• VHF/UHF/SHF Radio Monitoring
• Coherent Receiver Array
• Direction Finding
• Passive Radar
• ADS-B, ATC
• Radio Astronomy
• Satellite IF
• Telemetry Radio Receiver
• Wide Band Scanner
• Education
• Ham Radio, etc.

Supported platforms

• Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 (For Windows XP, please contact us)
• Linux
• *BSD
• OSX

Technical specifications

• Continuous 24 – 1700 MHz native RX range, down to DC with the SpyVerter option
• 3.5 dB NF between 42 and 1002 MHz
• Maximum RF input of +10 dBm
• Tracking RF filters
• 35dBm IIP3 RF front end
• 12bit ADC @ 20 MSPS (10.4 ENOB, 70dB SNR, 95dB SFDR)
• 10MSPS IQ output
• Experimental 2.5MSPS IQ output for low power devices (Raspberry Pi, Odroid, etc.) – Not recommended for high performance applications.
• Up to 80 MSPS when using custom firmware
• Cortex M4F @ up to 204MHz with Multi Core support (dual M0)
• 0.5 ppm high precision, low phase noise clock
• 1 RTC clock (for packet time-stamping)
• External clock input (10 MHz to 100 MHz via MCX connector) – Ideal for phase coherent radios
• 10 MHz panoramic spectrum view with up to 9MHz alias/image free
• IQ or Real, 16bit fixed or 32bit float output streams
• No IQ imbalance, DC offset or 1/F noise at the center of the spectrum that plagues all the other SDRs
• Extension ports: 16 x SGPIO
• 1 x RF Input (SMA connector, up to 30kV ESD protection)
• 1 x RF Output (Loopthrough, U-FL, 15kV ESD protection)
• 2 x High Speed ADC inputs (up to 80 MSPS, U-FL, DC coupled, 15kV ESD protection)
• 4.5v software switched Bias-Tee to power LNA’s and up/down-converters
• 8 x programmable high speed gpio’s up to 100MHz
• 3 x programmable synchronized clock outputs up to 160MHz
• 1 x core CPU clock output
• 1 x reset pin
• 2 x regulated +5.0 and +3.3v pins
• 1 x JTAG header
• No drivers required! 100% Plug-and-play on Windows Vista, Seven, 8, 8.1 and 10
• Operating temperature: -10°C to 40°C

Minimum hardware requirements

• 3rd gen Intel i3 2.4 GHz CPU or equivalent
• 2GB of RAM (to run your own OS, airspy barely needs 1MB of memory)
• High speed USB 2.0 controller

Supported Software

• The gold standard SDR#
• The ultimate Narrowband Signals Analysis and Decoding Suite Krypto500
• The ultimate Wideband Signals Analysis and Decoding Suite Krypto1000
• The other excellent SDR suite, SDR-Console
• The Suiss-army SDR knife for Linux and Mac, GQRX
• Check the full list of tools in our download page

Developer API

• Open source multi-platform libairspy and airspy host tools at github
• Open source airspy firmware at github
• Linux kernel SDR API (by Antti Palosaari) at github

Firmware Updates

v1.0.0-rc10-6 2020-05-08 (Changelog)