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Amazing and cheap SDR receiver.
- Thread starter Captain Kilowatt
- Start date
#Highland Ranger
Antennas.
As with any radio it is the antenna that makes all the difference. I do not have good HF antennas up as my interests lay above 6m. I am using different antennas based on the frequency I am listening to. For 144 MHz and above I am using an M25WL Yagi. For around 50 MHz I am using either a 5 ele Yagi or a 10 ele Yagi and for HF I am using a A3S 3 ele tri band Yagi. These just happen to be what I have in the air here. The little antenna that comes with the dongal is of little use other than using the lead to make up a pigtail. Use whatever antennas you can but remember the antenna will be the limiting factor on how well the SDR works.
Antennas.
As with any radio it is the antenna that makes all the difference. I do not have good HF antennas up as my interests lay above 6m. I am using different antennas based on the frequency I am listening to. For 144 MHz and above I am using an M25WL Yagi. For around 50 MHz I am using either a 5 ele Yagi or a 10 ele Yagi and for HF I am using a A3S 3 ele tri band Yagi. These just happen to be what I have in the air here. The little antenna that comes with the dongal is of little use other than using the lead to make up a pigtail. Use whatever antennas you can but remember the antenna will be the limiting factor on how well the SDR works.
Agreed about tbe little antenna that comes with it. It is more like a quarter wave on 800mhz. For now all I am using is a Radio Shack discone mounted about eight or ten feet above my back deck with the support pipe lashed to a railing post. I am sirprised at what I can hear on tbe FM broadcast band as well as some area 2m repeaters. 800 mhz stuff is iffy but that has a lot to do with coverage area in general where I live. I can't wait to get the hf converter or even better later when I get some REAL VHF antennas installed.
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C.K. I can help you keep you safe as far as the computer crashes ETC. These are common PC issues and can get you setup to keep that machine running like if not better than new. If you ever need or want the help just PM me my friend.
Sounds a little off topic but tnx. The only crash I ever had was last month when the laptop HDD took a dive. It was failing for a while apparently. Never an issue otherwise unless of course you posted that because of my spelling lately. LOL I have been using my phone a bit lately. Small buttons and big fingers with a touch screen are a bad combo if you want to appear half literate. LOL
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Well im new to this SDR thing, i looked into it before but none of the sticks would cover VHF low, which we use alot around here. Now that these cover them, i placed an order for one. I cant wait to see how this goes.
Also thanks to N1RJX and vo1ks and whoever else has posted so far as i was kinda hesitant before, but from what i have read so far, i should be able to figure it out, if not ill be asking lots of questions :tongue:
Also thanks to N1RJX and vo1ks and whoever else has posted so far as i was kinda hesitant before, but from what i have read so far, i should be able to figure it out, if not ill be asking lots of questions :tongue:
No doubt...
We still have some low band action around here as well. Cheap propagation receiver as well.
We still have some low band action around here as well. Cheap propagation receiver as well.
I got stick installed and working, getting that done with the cryptic information available was not straight forward. I am receiving, but very little given the poor antenna. I am waiting for a few cables to come so I can hook up the Ham it up and external antenna – I’ll report back in a few weeks when everything comes in.
Hopefully to help someone else, here is what I put together with instructions in one place for those challenged folks like me.
Initial order:
NooElec TV28T v2 USB DVB-T & RTL-SDR Receiver, RTL2832U & R820T Tuner : Amazon.com: NooElec TV28T v2 USB DVB-T & RTL-SDR Receiver, RTL2832U & R820T Tuner, MCX Input. Low-Cost Software Defined Radio Compatible with Many SDR Software Packages. R820T Tuner & ESD-Safe Antenna Input, Guaranteed: Everything Else
Ham It Up v1.0 - NooElec RF Upconverter For Software Defined Radio: Amazon.com: Ham It Up v1.0 - NooElec RF Upconverter For Software Defined Radio. Works With Most SDRs Like Funcube, RTLSDR (RTL2832U with E4000, FC0013 or R820T Tuners); MF/HF Converter With SMA Jacks: Car Electronics
Can also buy direct from NooElec: NooElec - Home page
Together this should give me the complete spectrum including HF.
Connections:
1. TV28T has a Female MCX connector
2. The Ham It up has two Female SMA connectors (one to USB stick, One to Antenna)
So depending on what you are going to antenna wise you can search for the cables on Amazon. In my case I bought:
This to connect the USB stick to Ham it up: Amazon.com: 2 x RF pigtail cable SMA male right angle to MMCX male right angle RG316 30cm: Computers & Accessories
This to connect to antenna: Amazon.com: Gino 6" SMA Male to SMA Right Angle Male Plug Jumper Pigtail Cable RG316: Electronics
This to convert the SMA cable to UHF: Amazon.com: SMA Female to UHF Female RF Adapter: Electronics
Installation:
Download SDR auto installer from NooElec site: NooElec - TV28T v2 DVB-T USB Stick (R820T) w/ Antenna and Remote Control - Software Defined Radio
Unzip package.
Plug in stick.
Run ZADIG.exe, select options|list all devices
Select “Bulk-In,_Interface_(Interface_0)” from drop down box
Press “Install Driver” Button
Open SDRSharp.exe, select adapter RTL SDR / USB press play
You should be receiving.
I have not hooked up the Ham It Up yet but there is a video here on how to do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Rnof4xGkdAo
I haven't bought it yet, but also looking at a small preamp: Amazon.com: Ramsey PR2 Broadband RF Preamplifier - Assembled: Electronics
Hopefully to help someone else, here is what I put together with instructions in one place for those challenged folks like me.
Initial order:
NooElec TV28T v2 USB DVB-T & RTL-SDR Receiver, RTL2832U & R820T Tuner : Amazon.com: NooElec TV28T v2 USB DVB-T & RTL-SDR Receiver, RTL2832U & R820T Tuner, MCX Input. Low-Cost Software Defined Radio Compatible with Many SDR Software Packages. R820T Tuner & ESD-Safe Antenna Input, Guaranteed: Everything Else
Ham It Up v1.0 - NooElec RF Upconverter For Software Defined Radio: Amazon.com: Ham It Up v1.0 - NooElec RF Upconverter For Software Defined Radio. Works With Most SDRs Like Funcube, RTLSDR (RTL2832U with E4000, FC0013 or R820T Tuners); MF/HF Converter With SMA Jacks: Car Electronics
Can also buy direct from NooElec: NooElec - Home page
Together this should give me the complete spectrum including HF.
Connections:
1. TV28T has a Female MCX connector
2. The Ham It up has two Female SMA connectors (one to USB stick, One to Antenna)
So depending on what you are going to antenna wise you can search for the cables on Amazon. In my case I bought:
This to connect the USB stick to Ham it up: Amazon.com: 2 x RF pigtail cable SMA male right angle to MMCX male right angle RG316 30cm: Computers & Accessories
This to connect to antenna: Amazon.com: Gino 6" SMA Male to SMA Right Angle Male Plug Jumper Pigtail Cable RG316: Electronics
This to convert the SMA cable to UHF: Amazon.com: SMA Female to UHF Female RF Adapter: Electronics
Installation:
Download SDR auto installer from NooElec site: NooElec - TV28T v2 DVB-T USB Stick (R820T) w/ Antenna and Remote Control - Software Defined Radio
Unzip package.
Plug in stick.
Run ZADIG.exe, select options|list all devices
Select “Bulk-In,_Interface_(Interface_0)” from drop down box
Press “Install Driver” Button
Open SDRSharp.exe, select adapter RTL SDR / USB press play
You should be receiving.
I have not hooked up the Ham It Up yet but there is a video here on how to do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Rnof4xGkdAo
I haven't bought it yet, but also looking at a small preamp: Amazon.com: Ramsey PR2 Broadband RF Preamplifier - Assembled: Electronics
V2 of SDR console is nicer than SDR sharp. If you follow directions in post 29 (thanks vo1ks) and make sure those three DLLs are in the right directory, the NooElec dongle works fine with SDR console.
Using SDR Console V2 with my RTL Dongle and it works great. I just got the SMA to MCX cables in the mail yesterday as well as the type N to SMA adapters. Now just waiting for the HF converter to arrive. Funny thing is that I ordered the HF converter from new York the same time I ordered the cables from China and the cables arrived before the converter did. I may look at ordering a preamp later after I see the performance with a real antenna.
Not sure where you are but I am in Canada so I have customs to delay things. It seems things from the USA always take longer than from overseas. Go figure.
I installed it but still can't get it to see the stick.
The interface doesn't look as nice as SDR console but SDR console is a little frustrating in terms of laying out the windows.
Both are nicer than SDR# which is very basic.
Also, none seem to have scan capabilities which I would think would be the one feature they'd all have.
Here are the instructions Paul sent earlier. I need to get mine setup and operational...
SDR Install Instructions
Follow these instructions and your R820t dongle will work. Of course the amount of hours I have into it I could have gone and bought a Flex 5000
To use the RTL TV Dongle with Simon Brown's SDR-radio application, you'll need the following two additional components (the following info is certainly readily available, but for a long time, it has been spread all over kingdom come, so absolutely nobody should feel bad for not being able to find it !!):
1) You need a useable USB driver (the one Windows installs automatically is worthless, as you've probably already experienced !!)
- the fastest way to get the required driver is to download the zadig.exe utility from the following URL (note that there is a special version for WinXP - make sure to use the appropriate one)... you'll need 7zip to uncompress the driver archive:
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/libwdi/files/zadig/>
- when you run zadig.exe, if your device does not automatically show up, you can go to the "options" pull-down & select "show all devices"... it will then show up... you want to choose either "Install driver" or "Replace driver" (both are correct)... note also that I experienced where Norton will flag zadig.exe as "suspicious" & it will keep zadig.exe from doing what it needs to... hope you don't have the same !!
2) You need a new DLL file to allow SDR-radio to access the RTL TV Dongle directly via USB (until recently, the only way to do this was to use the DLL or other drivers all supplied by osmocom, but this had legal restrictions, so we previously had to use a very bad work-around called rtl_tcp.exe... luckily this has now been made much simpler!!)
- you can get the required DLL file by going to Simon's V2 preview website at the following URL & scroll down to the section titled "RTL Dlls" where you will find links to the external websites that have agreed to source the compiled DLL for others to use... copy the downloaded files (3 total, pay attention to 32-bit vs. 64-bit versions, depending on your version of Windows) to the same directory where the SDR-radio application is installed:
<http://v2.sdr-radio.com/Configuration/RTLSDRs.aspx>
- now with all of the appropriate drivers installed, run SDR-radio V2
- at the top of the screen, towards the left-hand side, there are 6 icons... click on the blue arrow pointing to the right (that's the start icon)
- when the "Select Radio" dialog opens, click on the "Definitions" button
- when the "Radio Definitions" dialog opens, click on the "Search" button & select "RTL SDR (USB)" from the pull-down list
- you should get a pop-up that indicates "1 entry found - update list?" (assuming you have only a single RTL SDR device installed)
- click the "Yes" button to accept the new entry (clicking Yes if/when you've previously done this detection is OK - in fact, some have reported that they needed to re-detect when moving to a different USB port)
- back at the "Radio Definitions" dialog, click the "OK" button
- back at the "Select Radio" dialog, click on your RTL SDR to highlight it
- if you have more than one VFO enabled/selected, you might also need to click on the "Enable" button (another right-pointing arrow in the specific VFO windows) to start that particular VFO
- if you succeeded, you should be able to click on the "VFO Tuning" button just above the spectrum display to tune to your desired frequency, adjust the mode using the "Freq / Mode / Filter" button in the same area just above the spectrum display
- you might need to click on the spectrum range adjustment button on the right-hand side just above the spectrum scale in order to see anything painted in the spectrum display(s)
- one more thing to note: if you rearrange the display items & get it all scrambled or lose something & can't figure out how to get it back, you can always click on "Display", then "Layout", & finally "Default: Restore" to get everything back in a reasonable state !!
3) Good luck & have fun !!
Let us know when you get it going !!
Mark J Culross
KD5RXT
the website that i bolded is dead... im kind of stuck. :headbang I told you all that i would be asking for help lol