Transmitter And Receiver Operate On Little Current

The Cricket 100 transmitter module (see photo) and Cricket 300 receiver card are claimed to consume only 35 mA and 300 mA, respectively. Operating on 3V of battery power, the Cricket 100 can transmit TTL data at rates up to 9.6 kb/s and can be operated in temperatures from -40°C to 75°C. It measures only 2.5" x 1.25" x 0.5" and can be operated from 902.09 to 97.89 MHz in 337 channels. The channels can be programmed by either serial or parallel inputs. The Cricket 300 is a quadruple conversion receiver with a bandwidth as narrow as 20 kHz and features an automatic frequency-tracking loop to lock the carrier. It has a better than 60 dB image and out-of-band rejection. Sensitivity is -110 dBm and, using a high-gain Yagi antenna, is capable of receiving signals from the Cricket 100 at distances up to three miles. It measures 6.5" x 3.5" x 1" and operates on voltages from 10 to 14 Vdc. Pricing is $39 each/1,000 for Cricket 100 and $345 each/