Are pretty much all modern transceiver IC's the same as far as the circuit? All the ones I have looked at recently use a crystal and some passives for the antenna which I assume are for impedance/resonance matching?
Obviously the IC capabilities are different and the impedance matching techniques are too but basically it seems pretty simple circuit wise? Hardest part being the antenna(After all, thats really all there is).
So, for the most part I can be pretty ignorant about all the special transmission techniques and concepts(QAM, SSB, ISM, etc...) and still do wireless very easy using these IC's? As long as I get the antenna approximately right and hook up a uC/P then I should be able to do some wireless(may be degraded but...)? Seems like it from what I've read in the datasheets.
Guess I'm just supprised that it would be that easy but I suppose the IC pretty much takes care of everything? (as far as just bit banging is concerned)