90% of online receivers are a joke

[groundwire]

i just dont understand why literally like 90% of all these online sdr receivers that you can listen to are all garbage. they all have garbage antennas like indoor whips, mag loops on the deck outside, 10ft end fed wires etc. i click on all these stations and all you hear and see on the waterfall is power line noise and all kinds of other S9 interference. they all have horrible receive if any at all. seriously, whats the point? really? why go thru the work of setting up an online sdr if it doesnt receive anything except power lines? lol, ridiculous. the other 10% are really good.

 

[SuperLid]

Oh, you noticed the same thing as I did. I can count on one hand the useful ones.

 

[secret squirrel]

Remember fish bowl cameras or the Amazing Cow Cam. Most likely the SDRs are being setup by someone who is proud of the setup and has no real interest in people actually using their SDR for a practical purpose. Same thing with online police scanner setups.

 

[Klondike Mike]

A future path for public SDR's is public SDT's (software defined transmitters). Is something like this in the pipeline? Am I late to the party on this? I realize OP's with new ($$$$) radio's setup their own private remote access. I was listening to a UK SDR and thought it would be kinda' neat to jump in and say Hello. Whoosh. Waiting for windows of DX and the right amount of sunspots would be a thing of the past.

 

[Rob_MA]

I run four KiwiSDRs connected to an 80m-10m off center fed dipole at about 65 ft. But yes I agree, a large number of them run loops or other inefficient antennas. Part of why this is is because the loop antennas are heavily promoted in conjunction with the SDRs. The other part is many people don't understand the need for a good antenna on HF.