Electronics > RF, Microwave, Ham Radio
SDR? Bear with me I'm a radio noob!!!
biotron345:
Greetings!
Always liked the idea of ham radio and recently met a enthusiast who told me about the SDR dongle things on eBay for around £10-£15. He reckons they're great. What's your opinions? Is there one particular model I should avoid? I'd like to listen to ham stuff and anything else interesting. Advice greatly appreciated!!!
voltz:
If you just want to listen about, try one of the Web SDR links on the net for free. Like this one:
http://hackgreensdr.org:8901
The cheap SDR dongles (on Ebay) are a great start but there are limits with them. The cheap RTL DVB dongles you see usually start at around 25Mhz and go up from there. So not much use at the lower HF bands. Some can be converted though.
Other more expensive dongles do cover the lower bands.
The main problem with SDR dongles seems to be the lack of signal dynamic range. So large signals can swamp, or pull down, the whole band you're listening to. The 40m band at 7.200 Mhz is a real problem because of the massive AM broadcasts there. These generally kill reception with a cheap SDR RTL dongle.
Better more expensive dongles have band filtering, higher resolution ADCs (12 bit instead of 8 bit) and other goodies. So as usual, you get what you pay for.
w2aew:
Another good site is http://www.globaltuners.com/
Lots of online rigs to pick from, all over the world. Nice way to listen when you don't have your own equipment, or can't put up a decent antenna, etc.
biotron345:
Thanks guys! I never heard of these. Something to play with whilst I look into SDR :popcorn:
TheBay:
If you do get bitten by the SDR bug I highly recommend the SDRPlay RSP1, for the money it can't be beaten and will do HF and Below which the cheap sticks can't do properly/natively.
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