If FlexRadio PowerSDR provides all of the functionality for the radio, what does the hardware do?
This is a very good question. The transceiver hardware can be thought of as a bi-directional radio frequency to I/Q signal converter. It also serves as the physical interface between radio peripherals, such as antennas, microphones, keys, PTT control and the SDR software, which in this case is FlexRadio PowerSDR. The transceiver is responsible for all of the RF processing and signal path switching. When receiving, it routes the RF signals through filters and OP amps to the QSD where is is converter to an AF signal. The resulting AF signal is then passed on to the ADC where the AF signal is digitized and sent to FlexRadio PowerSDR for demodulation and processing. When transmitting, the digitized I/Q signals are sent from FlexRadio PowerSDR to the DAC which then passes the resulting AF signal to the QSE where it is converted to a weak RF signal. The transceiver is responsible for subsequent filtering and amplification the RF signal before routing it to the antenna. So any process that ac
