Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in Ham Radio Receivers
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Save on Ham Radio Receivers
See the info image. Essentially you install gqrx-sdr which automatically installs gnuradio--an advanced SDR program where you generate software by dragging around flow-charts and what not. I'm using this SDR to experiment with high-speed data transfer via physical SCPA. I've cut the antenna wire and applied it to RAM pins on running laptops, as well as to the SATA data wires of a busy spinning-disk hard drive. And I see beautiful order in chaos. Recording the I/Q data yields raw files which grow ~10MB per second--in "RAW I/Q" mode. That's plenty of processing for a tiny device like this. In this case, I set the frequency to 1.635GHz for maximum contrast & minimum noise. I will provide more details of files produced using this SDR on github: compromise-evident
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Im a telecom engineer, been playing around with my V3, three days .. It is a GREAT FM radio, but I bought it for HF ... IMPOSSIBLE to get it to work below 54Mhz , tried "I", "Q" and everything else in the book.. Downloaded 5 or 6 software's Only seeing Oscillator picks when "Q" mode is selected NO Stations at all (am,fm,usb)... still a good FM RX ... Will have to buy another one just to see if im an idiot or I have a defect one....
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The RTL-SDR Blog V3 RTL2832 paired with SDR# is an amazing bit of gear! The supplied antenna is basic but enough to get you started. Within minutes I was listening to air band. My location is approx 50 KM from the local airport and I was able to receive a strong signal. Signal strength is improved with the SWB signal amplifier notwithstanding it does raise the noise floor. The switchable bias Tee is a great feature. Tgood producto get the full use of this dongle it is ESSENTIAL that you follow the setup directions in SDR#. Well made, easy to use, highly recommended. In the good old days it took a radio shack full of equipment to be able to receive the range of signals offered by this small dongle.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
I had it working within hours of the mailman dropping it off. I followed the quick start directions from the Web site printed on the SDR. I had SDR# working right away on my Windows 8 desktop. I later tried on a Windows XP notebook but the software options for that old operating system are more limited. It still worked with the appropriate software. I have also tried the RTL1090 software to decode aircraft ADS-B beacons. It worked well for this, I was able to pick up aircraft more than 80 miles from my location (I'm near an airport and so there are lots of aircraft to look for). This is with only the little dipole antenna in the package, stuck to a window that doesn't even face the airport. I've also found ham radio APRS software that can work with this SDR. I can see transmissions by local police/fire services on the 770 MHZ band that my dedicated scanner doesn't cover, but of course I can't decrypt them. I can pick up the ATSC digital TV pilot carriers at XXX.310 MHZ - I set the "frequency adjust" to +1 ppm and these come in accurately on frequency. Wish I could demodulate at least sound...someone out there is working on that, I'm sure. A few drawbacks. I'd like to get a bunch of these to use for chasing high-altitude balloons with APRS beacon transmitters - it could work very well, directly receiving from the balloon instead of relying on spotty Internet coverage. However, you need a laptop with sufficient horsepower, and there are rather a lot of software pieces to put together. I am just using the package antennas and I find there are very very many spurious and intermodulation products, such as in the FM broadcast band - and many narrow spikes at various UHF and VHF frequencies, Pretty sure these would get better if I installed an FM band filter. I was surprised how warm the dongle gets - I would not recommend buying similar products in plastic cases. This is normal, the SDR draws 0.3 amps from the USB port and that turns into significant heat. I found the dongle stays much cooler even resting on a table top or any solid surface that conducts heat away from it. I'll probably set up some kind of heat sink or fin to keep it cooler. All in all, tremendous fun value for the dollar spent, and it even got into my hands a little quicker than I had expected. It's great fun to play with receiver bandwidth and modes - to do the same thing when I graduated university would have taken a room full of gear, now you can illustrate all these principles with a low-cost dongle and free software. I'm looking forward to getting this working on a Rasperry Pi - maybe I can single-handedly improve APRS coverage for next balloon season. And I haven't even started looking at GNU Radio and the things it can do. Read full review
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Excellent starter package into the amazing world of SDR's and the huge free range of SDR software available for free. I am a newbee myself . A lot of fun discovering the mass of banwidth and signals across the very wide spectrum and types of modulation. Theres so much to learn and to listen to but thats made it a great anount of fun for a few quid. Its worth spending twice the amount on DAB and FM fixed external or loft antennas at least to make the most from it but the packed portable whips that come with it do work well as a start depending on your location and radio enviroment. Best purchase Ive made in years.
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