RTL-SDR Blog V3 R860 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO HF Bias Tee SMA Software Defined Radio with Dipole Antenna Kit

I am not new to Radios, I knew what I was getting into. I know that prior to year 2012, A Software Defined Radio (SDR) such as this one reviewed here were certainly not for general public, as they were considerably more expensive. In the last few years however there have been a ton of development activity in the field of Software Defined Radio (SDR), soon after it was discovered that a un-seemingly simple "DVB-T" dongles based on the Realtek RTL2832U can be used as a cheap SDR. Since that Realtek branded chip allowed transferring the raw "I/Q" samples to the host, which was used for DAB/DAB+/FM demodulation based on the Realtek RTL2832U chip now could also be dialed into frequencies well outside their advertised ranges. Thus, what was designed and sold as a simple device for watching "Digital TV" on your computer could now be turned into a full fledged "radio" capable of receiving frequencies anything between 64 MHz to 1700 MHz with free open source software. Fast forward few years more into development, This current RTL-SDR Blog Version [V3] R820T2, RTL2832U with 1PPM Temperature compensated crystal oscillator [TCXO] & HF Bias Tee for providing power to Low noise Amplifier, Software Defined Radio dongle can now tune from "500 kHz" (Medium Wave (MW) & Long Wave (LW) Radio) up-to 1.7 GHz and upwards. The dongle has up to 3.2 MHz of instantaneous scannable bandwidth while "2.4 MHz" being the most stable on most computers. The RTL-SDR project has become the Radio tinkerer's “first step” for someone looking to experiment with radios. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and since the hardware is incapable of transmission, you don’t have to worry about having a HAM radio license to use it. You can however listen to, decode and scan all the frequencies (Works as an excellent frequency scanner) by pairing with capable software on most personal computers. The official software called as "SDR sharp" from "Airspy" is free and there are also several other capable SDR software one can use with the dongle (Like cross platform SDR++) which passionate developers have been making for the community. Installing the software for using RTL-SDR Blog Version [V3] USB dongle while might be relatively simple for tech savvy persons still remains mostly complicated for average user, that certainly needs to be addressed going forward. Especially the manual method of injecting the right USB drivers using a third party "Zadig" software and relying on various add-on libraries and Microsoft .NET 5.0 32-bit redistributable installed to use SDRSharp. Thankfully, there are other several developers who have taken this to next level by having the whole package preconfigured and ready to use using UBUNTU (LINUX based) .. Check out "Dragon OS". DragonOS which is a Debian Linux based operating system that comes with many open source software defined radio programs & additional decoding software pre-installed that takes all that driver installation requirements seen on windows based PCs totally seamless. Also, I found out that same DragonOS can be installed "alongside" windows if needed for a much seamless operation. Or you can just create a non-persistent "liveCD" environment using DragonOS and boot off USB stick to test it out. Bottom-line: The product reviewed here is an excellent value package, reasonably priced and has all the necessary accessories to get you started into Software Defined Radio (SDR) world. In my humble opinion it is worth more than 5 stars.. Five stars rating. Happy scanning!

I won't repeat what the other reviewers have generally said but focus on some bullet points on its HF capabilities. - Overall, very good HF reception, given its price. An inexpensive introduction to the SDR HF world and see if you want to invest more money and time in this aspect of the radio hobby. - The RTL-SDR is running just slightly warm when using it on HF - Based on using the RTL-SDR with the free program SDR#; was easy to download, install and run on my Windows 10 laptop PC. Go to the RTL-SDR web site for instructions and lots of related information. - SDR# has many options to tweak the received signals. Takes a little time to experiment and zero in on the best settings. - I'm in a typical medium sized city suburb with local AM and FM radio stations. An AMBCB filter was used to keep the local AMBCB out of much of the HF spectrum. A similar FM trap filter (which I do not have) would no doubt tame down the FM spurs that I see in the VHF signals. But the FM spurs do not show up in the HF band. - A decent HF antenna is a must .. I'm using a 40 year old HyGain trap vertical with signal strengths in the same ballpark as my Yaesu FT450D using an OCF dipole antenna. The small whip antennas included with the RTL-SDR are pretty much not worthwhile with HF signals - Tuning hams and other SSB signals is straightforward and gives good results. - For shortwave broadcaster reception, a $50 radio will give improved results. For SSB reception, a $100 radio will be better. I'm referring to general sensitivity, selectivity, audio quality and ease of use. - But the SDR-RTL does show the HF spectrum and its simple to scan around looking for various broadcast stations, hams, utilities, etc. In viewing the HF spectrum, many signals popup and then are gone. A conventional radio is more difficult to find these sporadic signals. - Lots of room to experiment. I may eventually buy a Ham It Up upconverter or an SDRPlay RSP1 or RSP2, etc. which will give improved results. - An excellent value .. recommended 5/14/17 Here is a screen shot (from the program SDR Console) of the RTL-SDR on the 40 meter Amateur Radio band on Sunday night. Lots of signals! Here I'm using the SDR as a 'panadapter' for my Yaesu FT450D ham transceiver. The program supports two way frequency synchronization with the FT450D .. meaning I can tune either the SDR or the FT450D and the other tracks the tuning. Neat!

I have read some of the comments about RTL dongles. The main complaint is their lack of sensitivity and the heat they throw off. In both cases, this is true. The heat issue is is basically a mechanical one. There simply is not enough surface area for these dongles to radiate the heat generated by these devices. As for the sensitivity, these are $20 devices. They are good enough to see if you would interested in continuing to learn more. These are not high performance receivers. That said, even with the antenna provided, inside in a rather RF noisy environment, I was able to pick up a wide variety of signals including airplanes, FM broadcast stations (which even my entertainment receiver WITH an antenna struggled to receive), and Amateur radio operators. I bet if I strung an antenna- or basically just dropped a wire out the window, I would pick up a lot more. The only other issue I have with the device is image rejection. It is possible to find an FM broadcast in several places in the spectrum. I believe these to be spurious images produced by the digital processing of the signals by the dongle. I did drop the rating because it's an OK receiver. You will get your money's worth. It is a fun diversion. I bought it because I am getting back into amateur radio and I wanted to learn a bit more about SDR as I will need some new equipment and I may want to go the route of SDR transceivers. Since I started with this device I have picked up an SDRPlay RSP-1A unit which has more sensitivity and better image rejection. The main difference is the RTL-SDR has only 8-bit wide processing while the SDRPlay has 14. Also, it has wider frequency coverage. So, if you want to investigate what SDR is about, this is a good way to start.

I'm basically new to radio signals that operate outside the normal US AM/FM broadcast bands. I recently bought a CCrane Skywave SSB portable radio from Amazon and enjoyed using that so much I stumbled across this device in my research into shortwave information. This dongle is awesome and has been able to do everything I've wanted to do so far. I suggest if you are new to this stuff and are in America to download a copy of the "United States Frequency Allocations The Radio Spectrum" chart to see all of the amateur bands you can find. I'm using a Mac Mini M1 and Cubic SDR 0.2.5. This setup works great and required no drivers other than installing the software. The learning curve was about half a day to get used to using the software and the features. I will say that the included dipole antenna is pretty good, I can tune down to about 25 MHz pretty easily using the larger antenna pair with the antenna mounted on my balcony railing and using a feedline SMA cable into my office where my computer is. I also ordered a MLA-30+ antenna from Amazon to try and get some more SWL channels to tune in better. I find that I can moderately receive the standard US-based shortwave channels using the included dipole antenna, but the signals are pretty weak. You usage might vary because my building I'm in where I live has a pretty bad issue with signal interference since there is so much electrical equipment on the condo complex roof with the air conditioning units being up there. This dongle kit has really given me a fun project to work on and has let me tune in lots of international and interesting talk and music stations really has been fun to use and the nice thing is I don't even need to leave my comfy recliner in my office to get a clear signal. Before I got this dongle kit I was leaving the house due to the RFI to get shortwave stations and having to go down to the parking lot. With the MLA-30+ and the dongle it's been great to just be lazy at home and do some swl.

Works well, but takes some expertise to set up

First, This is my 14th SDR. and 2nd time in a few years ive bought this one. Being an FCC Licensed Technician i have a bit (over 30 years) of radio knowledge. Sure, theres cheaper ones, with weak MCX connectors, placstic (ABS) enclosures and tiny mag mount antennas that may or may not actually have working internal connections. GO read the reviews, its not just the people being clueless, they are less than optimally designed and manufactured. And they run 15 to 22 bucks, with one cheap MCX antenna mag mount with a whopping 3 feet of cable. Spend the extra $8 to $12 bucks and you get a TXCO (ill explain) an aluminum housing, and an SMA Antenna connector, and obviously better internals and assembly, at least 4 collapsible antennas, and a flexi tripod stand, suction cup mount and 10 foot or so SMA extension cable. Walk into one of the HAM supply stores and i can assure you that the antenna kit alone will set you back $80.00 minimum... So you've already won purchasing this entire kit for $29.95... 1) TCXO, Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator SDR's have a known issue with frequency drift. On HF this is apparent when you tune lets say 3.176 LSB and the cheaper SDR's tend to start drifting sometimes a few khz and occasionally mhz off frequency. Many times the annoyance is adjustable via offset, but mostly its unpredicatble. Nothing worse than chasing an HF Morse or Voice QSO up and down the frequency and eventually losing it completely.. What these guys have done with the TXCO (In laymens terms) is make a more stable chip, and then test that chip into oblivion, figured out the temperature and drift characteristics and then made a chip with a temperature sensor, and a built in code that changes the voltage to a KNOWN differential value for the chip's temperature - Thus creating a self correcting and considerably more accurate and drift-free unit in their SDR's.. HUGE BENEFIT. 2) MCX connectors suck. they are push to fit, not locking. after a while the cheaper MCX SDR's on Amazon eventually break, usually at the MCX antenna connector, or you end up taping the antenna on it. (Guilty-i have 2) SMA Connectors are more robust, and thread down and lock on, they also have significantly less loss and are more stable overall, BUT, the other bonus is SMA is now industry standard on about 98.6% of anything hand held. So finding new and cheap antennas on Amazon or Flea_Bay to test out on ANY band WONT be a problem. 3) Aluminum Housing and Thermal management internally. Remember the Drift i mentioned above? One thing SDR's do is get really warm, even hot in many cases. THEY ALL DO. A cheap SDR in an ABS plastic cover is basically a tiny oven for that cheap SDR and its components. causing bit errors, driver issues and significantly lowering the lifespan of that unit. This RTL-SDR Blog unit has a full aluminum USER disassemblable housing, and has had thermal management engineered into it. I do have several of the cheaper SDR's that ive smashed the plastic housings off and have small fans blowing across them and a Raspberry Pi project, they work, poorly. The RTL-SDR Blog units aluminum housing is part of the thermal management, as is the thermally conductive flex block internally installed. on the pcb, Yes it makes a HUGE difference. Stability is huge below 30mhz. and these units absolutely outshine ANY OTHER SUB $100.00 SDR on Amazon. Add the Upconverter, a balun and a cheap G5RV longwire or make your own (with balun) and you will hear the WORLD as good or better than some $1500-$4500.00 HF Transcievers. Lastly, LISTEN TO THESE SELLERS. Follow their instructions by going to the SDR# Page they refer you to, and within maybe 4 or 5 minutes you will be setup and listening to the world from this fantastic kit. Besides listening to the world, you can actually use them for ADS-B and monitor air traffic radar in real time (extremely cool!) get live NOAA Weather radar, check out live International Space Station Images, Watch Television and so much more. The only limitation is the software. and its ALL out there! 100% free! *I was not compensated in any way for this review, im a BIG FAN of quality sellers and these guys are in my top 5 They answer emails and will help you every step of the way. I bought one and the antenna was broken and they answered immediately and overnighted me a whole new kit at no cost to me., MANY Amazon sellers could learn something from these guys about good customer service

Disappointed in the latest batch of units...Ver 3 has traditionally been a silver case with Ver 4 in a black case. For some reason the Ver 3 are now ALSO in black cases, so if you want Ver 4 makes sure it says V4 not V3.

What a wonderful world we live in when we can get such astonishing electronics for equally astonishing bargain prices. I bought an earlier R820T based RTL-SDR a few years ago. It was a fun thing to play with, but that was about all it was - a plaything. Something caused me to recently rediscover it, and to my delight, the 'state of the art' has moved forward in the several years that have passed. I know there are 'entry level' units currently offered on Amazon for half the price of this unit, but I decided to be 'extravagant' and get this unit instead. The manufacturer is a reputable and respected company that contributes generously to the radio community overall with an excellent blog full of great content and I was pleased to support them, and to see what I'd get in return. The unit didn't disappoint. Quite the opposite - it exceeded expectations greatly. It is hard to know how much of the improvement is related to the two antennas provided and in truth I attach little value to their proud claim of using 1% tolerance components - well designed circuits rarely need such exactness. Actually, I sort of do know the impact of the antennas. Using the older product and then comparing it to the newer product with the short antenna set to a similar length to the older product's supplied antenna, I saw a few dB of signal improvement. That's nice, particularly from my unfortunately located in the basement shack. Oh - and when I used the larger telescoping antenna, I could adjust that to bring in another 20 dB of signal over the noise floor. Wow. That's stunning (but also mainly the antenna rather than the dongle). The dongle itself tuned cleanly and crisply, and whereas my earlier unit had a 54 ppm deviation off frequency, the new unit has sat happily at zero correction and that is as close to perfect as I can tell. This is a great unit, much improved on the earlier generation. You definitely should get one. I use the SDR+ (SDR Sharp) software on my PC, and am experimenting with some of the plug-ins available too (trunk radio systems monitoring, regular scanning, improved interface and controls, and so on). I also use SDR Touch on my various Android devices and a USB dongle - it really impresses people when I pull my regular Android phone or tablet out, plug this into the dongle, and instead SDR on my phone, completely with the futuristic FFT and waterfall displays. Recommended. David - NZ9G

Conocía el producto y quería evaluarlo. Es el mismo producto SDR de RTL-SDR que en su versión "plateada" pero revisionado, certificado y con una carcasa metálica en negro. De lo mejor si te quieres adentrar en el mundo del SDR. Pero no le puedo dar cinco estrellas porque el producto está excesivamente inflado de precio. Por la mitad del mismo se puede adquirir en otros lados incluida distribución nacional y en menos de 24 horas.

The RTL-SDR Blog V3 is an incredible software-defined radio that offers amazing performance at an affordable price. Whether you're a beginner exploring SDR or an advanced user, this device delivers! What Makes It Great: ✔️ Wide Frequency Range – Covers from 500 kHz to 1.7 GHz, allowing me to monitor everything from AM/FM radio to airband, ADS-B, NOAA weather, and even ham radio. ✔️ High Stability & Low Drift – The 1PPM TCXO ensures stable tuning with minimal frequency drift. ✔️ Versatile Modes – Supports direct sampling for HF and quadrature sampling for VHF/UHF. ✔️ Plug & Play with SDR Software – Works seamlessly with SDR# (SDRSharp), HDSDR, and other popular programs. ✔️ Excellent Build Quality – Solid aluminum casing helps reduce interference and improves heat dissipation. ✔️ Bias-T Power Option – Great for powering active antennas or LNA directly from the dongle. Final Thoughts: This is easily the best entry-level SDR out there. It’s incredibly flexible, easy to use, and packed with features that make it a must-have for any radio enthusiast! Highly recommended! 📡🚀

1700Mまでしか受信できないとはいえ、普通のラジオはもちろんそれ以外にもいろいろ面白い電波が受信できる。ADSBやらエアバンドやら… 25M以下を受信するにはソフトウェアから設定の切り替えが必要なので要注意。

Works exceptionally well, minimal configuration required to get a satisfactory result. Overall a very fun and interesting product to mess around with!

entrega antes de tiempo fue muy rapido se ve de muy buena calidad