I am wanting to setup a receiver station, I was wanting to get a few SDR setup... looking to keep it cheap... ideas?
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Thinking About Getting A Sdr... Which One Is Decent & Cheap?
- Thread starter mr_fx
- Start date
I'm pretty happy with this one...
eBay item #151217088428
Lots of free software from different sources available for everything from spectrum analyzers to P-25 trunking. Plan on adding an sma to So-239 adapter so that you can use a real antenna.
If you're looking to cover the HF bands, keep looking. This only goes as low as 25mhz.
eBay item #151217088428
Lots of free software from different sources available for everything from spectrum analyzers to P-25 trunking. Plan on adding an sma to So-239 adapter so that you can use a real antenna.
If you're looking to cover the HF bands, keep looking. This only goes as low as 25mhz.
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Here is my input on your question. I owned one of the Flex SDR rigs and while it did have a nice receive and did everything one would want I missed the knobs, bells and whistles. I traded it for a Drake C-line. I then decided I would go with a real radio/SDR setup, that being a Yaseu FT-950 and the $50.00 USB dongle that allows full SDR coverable. Now I can turns the knobs till the cows come home and still stare at the monitor watching the signals till I nearly go blind.
The Softrock RX Ensemble is a pretty decent receiver for the price. The feed back from people that have spent some time with the various receivers is that it is big jump in performance over the USB dongles.
You can get the kit prebuilt for a reasonable price.
http://fivedash.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6
I've been seriously considering the Funcube Dongle Pro+.
http://www.funcubedongle.com/?page_id=1073
Sure is small enough, both size-wise and price-wise, and has HF capabilities. I think it will also work as a panadapter via the IF output from my FTDX-3000 just for giggles.
73,
Brett
http://www.funcubedongle.com/?page_id=1073
Sure is small enough, both size-wise and price-wise, and has HF capabilities. I think it will also work as a panadapter via the IF output from my FTDX-3000 just for giggles.
73,
Brett
Well, it's been a long time since I posted about this! I actually tried a Soft66RTL2, and it worked ok. I ended up deciding to buy a SDRPlay, mainly because it has filtering, 8 mHz of bandwidth, 12 bit processing, and only costs 150 bucks. I plan on running it with SDR-Console, which is a pretty impressive software package. It is written by the same Simon Brown that wrote Ham Radio Deluxe, so I know it's got to be good. And the software is free at this time, so I'm going to roll with that. I found another FTDX-3000 user that has his SDRPlay hooked up to the RX out (rather than the IF out) and says it works great as a panadapter. I should receive the SDRPlay by the end of the week. Hopefully I'll have time to play with it and get it set up correctly.
73,
Brett
73,
Brett
Brett,
I just watched the into video on the SDRPlay and it looks really good. Post a review after you have it up and running. I'll probably order one.
I wanted to add that I got mine from http://mypanadapter.com/ for about $70.00. It came with the cable a cd with instructions for my particular rig (FT-950) and there are videos on fine tuning. The guy has great support. I am not in any way affiliated, just a happy customer.
I've seen those, but aren't they a R820T (or similar) dongle with an upconverter? I considered going that route, and to get a panadapter for that minimal price is a heck of a deal. However, I'm still dabbling around with SDR, and wanted to get something with some filtering in it. The dongle that I have now gets overloaded very easily, and I get false signals. I'm hoping that the SDRplay will let me play both with a panadapter, and as a seperate receiver when I want to.
73,
Brett
So far I've been OK with the R820T + RTL2832U
Interesting comments here:
http://swling.com/blog/2015/03/wyn-compares-the-sdrplay-rsp-and-airspy/
Particularly, "You can Google for several video’s made by Leif Asbrink on Youtube who has made a series of benchmarks wich points out the not so decent dynamic range of the SDRplay."
Interesting comments here:
http://swling.com/blog/2015/03/wyn-compares-the-sdrplay-rsp-and-airspy/
Particularly, "You can Google for several video’s made by Leif Asbrink on Youtube who has made a series of benchmarks wich points out the not so decent dynamic range of the SDRplay."
That's good to know on the combo. I have seen a lot of videos using them on YouTube.
I did a lot of reading on what seems like a bazillion SDR's out there, and did read the comments from the first link. I also read some forum comments from an SWL forum, and the author of the video you are talking about said he didn't use the proper driver for the SDRplay when he tested it. The 380-420 mHz gap that they complain about (where all the UK police play) has been remedied recently with a software update. It was not an issue for me, since I'm only using it for HF.
People can argue these things until the cows come home... this one is more sensitive, this one has better selectivity, this one has this feature, this one has that. I'm very happy with my purchase so far. It was 165 dollars total with shipping, is in one neat/tidy little box, and I hooked it up to SDR-Console and it worked right on the first try. The receiver is not as good as my FTDX-3000, but offers me some flexibility that I didn't have before, plus it gives me a point and click panadapter for hunting stations. Pretty cool stuff, that used to cost a fortune to set up!
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$20 RTL-SDR with 1PPM TCXO, SMA F Connector and R820T2;
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/new-products...ng-break-out-pads-now-available-in-our-store/
I ordered one of these a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/new-products...ng-break-out-pads-now-available-in-our-store/
I ordered one of these a couple of weeks ago.