China based RDA Micro, an RF IC company, has been introducing some interesting single chip radio solutions, similar to those made by Silicon Labs in the US.

A number of chips are of interest:

1. RDA1846 for dualband amateur  transceivers, covering  136-174 and 400-470 MHz . This chip is already commercial and appears in the Vero Global Communications' UV-3R HT, available on Ebay for under $50 (total!) shipped from China.

Data sheet: http://goo.gl/1v7ip

Reviews:

http://goo.gl/nVwK2

http://goo.gl/CZnGW

http://goo.gl/uGRXt  (5 pages)

2. RDA5830 (AM/FM) and RDA5831 (AM/FM/LW/SW)

Details: http://goo.gl/odldn

I will upload the PDF data sheet of this chip to the files section here as the RDA Micro web site is timing out. No indication that the chip supports multiple AM bandwidths similar to the Silicon Labs chips.

3. A number of other FM only chips, with RDS, and transmitter. See

http://goo.gl/C8AA5

So in summary I think it's only a matter of time before we see ultralights based on the RDA5830/1 chips. And if the price of the U3-VR is an indication, they will be quite affordable.

Regards

Paul