NRF905 external PA

[Edriano Carlos Araujo]

Hello all,

I have been using nrf905 for about 5 years without problems. now I would like to ask if is there any way to use an external PA? I am not a RF engineer and i am not sure if it is a good idea.

thanks in advance.

[ketiljo]

Hi

It depends a bit where in the world you are located. There are different restrictions on output power in different regions. In Europe for instance, there's no point in using higher output power as there are no frequency in the 868MHz band that allows this. This is dependent on the country, so some countries may allow this at certain frequencies.

In the US, you may want to do frequency hopping also to use higher output power to satisfy the regulations.

Using a PA will increase the complexity and cost of the product. Also battery lifetime is greatly impacted as a PA may easily draw 100mA. It's also more difficult to attenuate the harmonics sufficiently, and external low pass filters may be needed.

Often, optimizing the antenna is a better way to increase range, but it depends a bit on the requirements you have,