RF switch damage?

[cochenob]

Uh-oh!

Over the past few weeks I've been developing an application that uses both the Tx and Rx ports of the USRP.  I wrote one LV program for the Tx end, and another for the Rx side.  The ports are currently connected by a short SMA cable and a 30dB in-line attenuator.  As the development became more sophisticated, I began to notice some strange behavior....and now have just realized that my receiver program had been set to Rx1....the same port that the Tx uses. 

What does the radio do in this scenario?  If I initiate a process on Rx1....then initiate a process with Tx1....would the driver be smart enough to flip the RF switch?  Would it switch back after the Tx process was done?  Have I inadvertently set the RF switch into some weird setting?  Have I fooled myself into thinking I was receiving the correct data/signal levels when I may have been only seeing some kind of reflection/crosstalk? 

When I run the application with the correct Antenna settings....I unfortunately am seeing the same strange behavior, which could mean that I haven't done anything bad, and I just have errors in my code.....or it could mean that I somehow pummeled/confused the RF switch.

Crossing fingers for good news....

---
Brandon

[Leah-L]

Hi Brandon,

I woudn't think that this would cause any damage to your USRP. I imagine that the signal you were reading is the signal that you were Transmitting. I believe that you are right in saying that you were probably just reading  crosstalk from the transmitted signal. 

Unless you were reading an external signal into the USRP, I doubt that any of the USRP hardware would become damaged. 

Regards,