IRCOS JSC

Technical Means for Radio Monitoring

Investigations - Design & Engineering - Manufacturing - Delivery - Maintenance

Digital Radio Receivers


This section describes digital radio receiving units and tuners.

All basic component of the equipment manufactured by IRCOS are designed and produced by the company itself. In 1999 the company started manufacturing of proprietary professional digital radio receiving equipment. The digital part of the devices is built on the software defined radio (SDR) principle, while advanced digital signal processors, programmable logic integral circuits, analog to digital converters are used.

Digital radio receivers support basic operating frequency range from 9 kHz to 3000 MHz. This range can be further extended up to 8 or 30 GHz by means of internal or external signal frequency tuners: ARC-PS8, ARC-PS9, ARC-PS330.

In 2011 the company started manufacturing of ARGAMAK radio receivers with max. IF bandpass of 24 MHz and high sensitivity, linearity and dynamic range.

In 2011 the company started manufacturing of ARGAMAK-VM0 and ARGAMAK-VM1 External Radio Receiving Units with 24 MHz bandwidth provided for indoor and outdoor operation as a part of ARC-D19R Remote Radio Monitoring System as well as other radio monitoring equipment.

In 2022 the company has started supplying new ARGAMAK-D11 (Model 5) Two-Channel Panoramic Radio Receiver based on ARC-PS7, ARC-PS8, ARC-PS9 Radio Receiving Modules with bandpass of 100 MHz minimum at each channel. Key feature of the receiver is high-speed automatic gain control with depth up to 90 dB. Application of ARGAMAK-D11 in radio monitoring equipment, e.g. systems for revealing the illegal radio emission sources, automatic direction finders, analyzers of digital signals, systems of technical analysis significantly increases their performance, expands functionality, primarily in the direction of vector analysis of modulation parameters of broadband digital signals of wireless data communication systems.

All ARGAMAK digital radio receivers provide for measuring, panoramic, spectrum and vector signal analysis, make possible to find the service parameters of telecommunication systems, such as АPCO P25, DMR, NXDN, dPMR, GSM, UMTS, LTE, 5G, IS-95, cdma2000, EV- DO, TETRA, DECT, DVB T / T2 / H, DTMB as well as short-range wireless communication networks like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (Classic and Low Energy), Zigbee, etc.

The measuring means ARGAMAK-IS, ARGAMAK-M, ARC-D1TI have state certificates of the measuring equipment type and certified methods, which regulate measurement procedures, correspond to recommendations of ITU-R SM.328, ITU-R SM.377, ITU-R SM.378, ITU-R SM.443, ITU-R SM 1268, ITU-R SM.182, ITU-R SM.1536, ITU-R SM.1793.

ARGAMAK-IS and ARGAMAK-CS digital radio receiver have functions of synchronization by signals of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) GPS/GLONASS, which allows increasing frequency stability of the reference generator from 10-9 to 10-11 and implementing high precision measurement of the frequency of the received signal.

ARGAMAK-IS digital radio receiver provides measurement of parameters of DVB-T, DVB-T2, DTMB digital TV signals, including frequency measurement. According to the certified measurement method, the relative error of the frequency assessment does not exceed ±5×10-11. At this the error of the signal level measurement does not exceed ± 1 dB, the error of the frequency bandwidth measurement does not exceed ±0,1%. The measurement error values meet the requirements of GOST R 55696-2013, GOST R 5939-2014 and the current norms of State Radio Frequency Committee of the Russian Federation.

The synchronization from GNSS implemented in the digital radio receiver of ARGAMAK-IS and ARGAMAK-CS enables to determine time of signal arrival to receivers with a frequency up to 20-50 nsec, which allows in automated radio monitoring systems using of time-difference of arrival (TDoA) methods for measurement of radio emission source coordinates not requiring direction finding. This function improves efficiency of automated systems.

One of the applications of ARGAMAK-D11, ARGAMAK-2K7 Two-Channel Panoramic Radio Receiver is coherent correlative receipt of signals that enables detection of weak signals under natural and industrial noises, as well as signals within bandwidth of more powerful radio emissions. Another application of two-channel receivers is radio monitoring afield, including automatic direction finding. With AS-HP-HF, AS-HP1, AS-HP2, AS-HP5 replaceable antenna systems, their DF operating frequency range is from 1.5 to 8000 MHz. ARGAMAK-D11 (Model 5) Two-Channel Digital Panoramic Radio Receiver with AS-HP-HF, AS-HP5, AS-HP2 Antenna Systems provides for radio monitoring within frequency range of 1.5 – 8 000 MHz by electronic switching of the antenna system, no manual switch is required.

ARGAMAK-M Radio Receiver, ARC-CPS2M, ARC-CPS5 Radio Receiving Units have small dimensions and weight. They can be used as unified portable (manpack) devices for radio monitoring inside premises or afield. Some of devices allow autonomous operation based on preset task and further processing of operation results. The receivers can be optionally supplied with integrated SSD to record I/Q sapmles of signals.

ARC-D1TI Measuring Radio Receiver is an efficient tool for assesment of informational protection. It is certified as measuring equipment. High sensitivity of receiving path, wide dynamic range of measured signal levels within wideband path (IP2 / IP3 is min. 75 dB within 24 MHz bandwidth), high performance enable efficient monitoring for protection of computer-processed data from leakages.

Radio receivers manufactured by our company provide for transmitting continuous time samples of received signals with bandwidth determined by receiver bandwidth to external devices. For example, for compact ARC-CPS2M maximum bandwodth of I/Q sample is 5 MHz, for ARGAMAK-IS, ARGAMAK-CS, ARGAMAK-M, ARGAMAK-VM0, ARGAMAK-VM1 it is 24 MHz, for ARGAMAK-D11 (Model 4), ARGAMAK-2K7, ARC-CPS5 it's 40 MHz. For ARGAMAK-D11 (Model 5) it can reach 200 MHz.

IRCOS designs not only ready solutions but also provides user with opportunity to design his own software and hardware for his individual tasks. According to this, the company supplies ready-made radio receiving units for both analogue and digital signal processing, as well as radio receiving units to be integrated with the customer equipment that enable selection and transfer of radio signals to intermediate frequency and digital processing modules.



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