Considerations when using high-gain LNAs

Posted by GPIO Labs on

s-l1600

Some of our LNAs provide in excess of 40 dB of gain and operate over a wide frequency range. The primary application of these products is to amplify weak signals by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver.

One important consideration when using these LNAs is that they amplify everything across their frequency range of operation. If your receiver does not have any front-end filtering, you might find yourself having to deal with a large assortment of strong unwanted signals. Most software-defined radios are wideband and therefore susceptible to these strong signals. A strong signal present at the input of a receiver can cause it to saturate and produce garbage at the output.

When using these high gain LNAs we recommend using a bandpass filter for your frequency range of interest. We have a number of such filters for GPS, 426, 433 MHz, 915 MHz and 2450 MHz bands and we are looking to add new filters. If you would like to see us develop a filter for your application, get in touch.