Three octave six-port network for a broadband software radio receiver

The six-port network has been identified in recent years as the best candidate to implement a Software Defined Radio (SDR). However, it is difficult in practice to implement a device without impairments if a broadband design is addressed. In this paper we present a three octave six-port network, covering the frequency range from 698 MHz to 5850 MHz. The six-port network is part of a SDR receiver prototype for a novel broadband mobile communications system. It has been measured with good performance.