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Who's Into SDR Receivers? (the little USB ones)

Mudfoot

Elmer
Jun 17, 2009
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Southeast Ohio
Just got a SDRPLAY RSP1A. I like it so far. I use mine for MW and FM radio. Be nice if we had a section for SDR stuff. Eventuall, I want to start decoding digital modes, but my patience is not what it used to be and is harder to learn new stuff. My sons friend is amazed at what it does. I think the younger crowd might be interested in these, since it's computer controlled.

So far, My only antenna has been the Diamond D130J Discone antenna fed with 50' 9913f. Seems to do OK.
 
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I might be a little later in the year. I'm thinking about buying a transceiver that covers the higher frequencies. I did buy an antenna for the upper bands that I could use for that and a scanner. It is a Harvest D-2000. It cover a lot of frequencies for receive and transmit from six meters up to 1.3ghz. Got a good price too.
discone.jpg
 
IMO - the old SWL receivers were cool. But not anywhere as inexpensive and cooler than the SDRs. Did I say inexpensive? Yeah, and cheap too - lol. But very effective with a discone I'll bet. Never had a discone yet; but it is on my list since I need to monitor the state and county fire nets here, where fire danger is a real issue.

The RTL SDR and software have been a cheap and relatively effective means to monitor harmonics when testing CBs too . . .
 
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I have an sdrplay. I tapped an IF in a kenwood ts440 and a couple of different cb radios so I could use it as my receiver and panadapter. I was impressed with the performance.

My favorite software would be a toss up between Sdr console version 2 and 3. I believe sdr console v3 had the option to mute the receiver when a strong signal was received. That way you could use it on the same antenna as your transmitter with a t/r relay and not get feedback on transmit.
 
SDR Play is great. I prefer SDRUno software because you can configure multiple windows or use just a single one and save them as a work station for easy recall.

Mostly I just use the pan adapter window and have it placed on the bottom of my screen and have other programs on top. This lets me see the band and provides mouse click waterfall frequency changing.

Feel free to see some screenshots of SDRUno software in my gallery pics.

I do like SDR console too for a single window program and occasionally use this one.

I have my Kenwood TS-590 and Icom-IC 7000 running into the SDRPlay RSP2 with full rig control on both. The Kenwood is for HF while the Icom is for VHF/UHF.

The good thing is you can try many different free SDR programs since these aren't proprietary.

If you have your HF rig setup for rig control with your SDRplay, you're already set to go for most digital modes.

I do PSK-31 and occasionally work JT-65/FT8.
 
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I use an online sdr radio as a receiver for when I can not hear a station because of noise on my end or an interfering station. But can hear them on the sdr. And then I can make the contact. I have built a simple relay box that is connected to my radio accessory connector and automatically shuts off my computer speakers so I dont get any feedback if it hears my signal. websdr . org is a good place that has alot of online sdr radios listed.
 
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Bought one of the inexpensive RTL-SDR things. Tried to install it to my Linux laptop. Unsuccessful as Ubuntu hates people. Not a user friendly OS.
Went to my Android phone. Installed app, SDRtouch, paid for key. So far it hears nothing on any band/frequency with the provided antenna.
This thing is an absolute mystery, but a definite $50 money pit so far. It's gotta get better. I've gotten more from a bag of popcorn.
It sucks to be ignorant. . .
 
Bought one of the inexpensive RTL-SDR things. Tried to install it to my Linux laptop. Unsuccessful as Ubuntu hates people. Not a user friendly OS.
Went to my Android phone. Installed app, SDRtouch, paid for key. So far it hears nothing on any band/frequency with the provided antenna.
This thing is an absolute mystery, but a definite $50 money pit so far. It's gotta get better. I've gotten more from a bag of popcorn.
It sucks to be ignorant. . .
The SDRUno software has a Linux version, try theirs.

It's a free open source download.

It might not workwork with your current SDR device but the SDRPlay RSP2 is only $160 and is currently the best one out there. This one has 3 antenna ports. I use mine with 2 radios for HF/VHF/UHF split into 2 of the antenna ports.
 
Bought one of the inexpensive RTL-SDR things. Tried to install it to my Linux laptop. Unsuccessful as Ubuntu hates people. Not a user friendly OS.
Went to my Android phone. Installed app, SDRtouch, paid for key. So far it hears nothing on any band/frequency with the provided antenna.
This thing is an absolute mystery, but a definite $50 money pit so far. It's gotta get better. I've gotten more from a bag of popcorn.
It sucks to be ignorant. . .

I don't have any expearience with linux but the RTL dongles took some light hacking to work on windows. There were some dll files that had to moved for it to work. When the dongle started having issues I got the sdrplay and it was much easier to get set up.
 
Tried to install it to my Linux laptop. Unsuccessful as Ubuntu hates people. Not a user friendly OS.
HomerBB,
I tried Ubuntu a while back, it seemed to be okay as far as driver support but this was about two years before I got my RTL-SDR dongle.

I read some of the information in your posts, & I found a link that I hope can help.
http://www.instructables.com/id/rtl-sdr-on-Ubuntu/

I've not had the pleasure of installing this RTL-SDR in a Linux machine, yet! :)

I know I was immediately able to receive my local commercial FM stations, and they even caused over-load without some type of band pass/rejection filtering while in the HF range. (or anywhere not near a commercial FM station frequency for that matter)

In the software I use on Windows 7, (SDR#) I had to increase the RF gain adjustment before hearing anything really interesting, but then the over-load/imaging issue became very apparent.
I use it mainly as a bandscope on my bench, so I can see the RF domain, I also use it to monitor the audio frequency response of my transmitter.

I have used it as an actual receiver, but w/out any filtering it wasn't too enjoyable with QRM, so I definitely recommend some filtering after you have it tuning stations, try local FM broadcast band!
73
 
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The Ubuntu OS seemed to accept the drivers and program install okay, but when I created a .rule file to start the app up Ubuntu refused to give me, the file creator, permission to add the rules script to the file. The app is worthless and I can go no further with it.
So far any SDR program, Android, Linux, or Windows, are nonfunctional, disfunctional, or just planely far too complicated to actually enjoy. Or maybe it's me.
 
Bought one of the inexpensive RTL-SDR things. Tried to install it to my Linux laptop. Unsuccessful as Ubuntu hates people. Not a user friendly OS.
Went to my Android phone. Installed app, SDRtouch, paid for key. So far it hears nothing on any band/frequency with the provided antenna.
This thing is an absolute mystery, but a definite $50 money pit so far. It's gotta get better. I've gotten more from a bag of popcorn.
It sucks to be ignorant. . .
So you can upgrade to win7 or win10 for $10, if you can afford that. All you have to do is get the license key from either operating system for an online distributor. I found a legitimate seller on ebay ( sounds like an impossibility - I know) that sells these license keys for $5! Just upgraded two PCs over here the last few days.

If your machine is 64 bit ready; then you can get the 64 bit OS for the same $5-10 price - to boot.

From the same seller he gives you the link to download the operating system, download it, then burn that ISO file to a DVD disk. If you know how to do that stuff - or know someone that will do it for you, you can get away from the Linux propeller-head schtuff and get into WIndows for on the cheap.

THEN you will have few problems with making your RTL-SDR click for ya.
JMHO

No offense to the Linux fan boys; just wanted to point out that he isn't as stuck as he might think. Spending $50 for the dongle and then $5-10 for the system to make it work is a cheap fix IMO . . .
 
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Howdy, Robb.
I have a Windows OS machine out in my workshop. Installed HDSDR free software.
It installed and came to life. Gotta find another app. No easy way of getting it dialed in (I'm 62 in 2 weeks). Surely someone has a beginners version of this stuff. A nice little point and click. Simple menu options, maybe some plain english like normal folks speak kind of help section. I'm not so good at techno geek-speak. I'll keep trying 'til I get it.
But you're right, Windows is way ahead of Android and Linux to this point.
 
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