SDR Dongle

[Tim NicholsParticipant]

Hi,

Anybody else tried an SDR dongle?

I was recommended it as an inexpensive way into the hobby but I’m struggling to get anything out of it. All I seem to be able to get is BBC radio on the VHF frequencies, although I think I found a Chinese music station on the 20m band yesterday.

I can see peaks on the spectrum that seem to indicate activity but when I try to interpret them there seems to be nothing intelligible that I can decipher.

There was a short section on them in the last foundation course module, but does anybody have any hints and tips or user advice on getting anything out of them? Is there something I’m doing wrong?

Tim

[Adam WilsonParticipant]

Hi Tim,

Im new here and am looking to try an SDR dongle also.
Did you have much luck in the end, or find any useful videos etc to start my journey?

Tug

[Tim NicholsParticipant]

Hi Tug,

I have come to the conclusion that they are only as good as the antenna they are fed from.

Don’t spend too much money on one to start with. They are OK to play around with and get a feeling of what is out there, but I feel my money is better invested in a radio and antenna.

You will notice that most modern transceivers have an SDR incorporated into them to give the waterfall. This is probably the best use for them as they are fed from the same antenna and so are “seeing” what the radio is seeing and allow you to visualise the spectrum or band you are on rather than just feeling around blindly. If the radio and SDR dongle are fed from two different antennas they will “see” two different things because each antenna has it’s own characteristic and so there are variations in their performance.

The antenna design and performance is really where it’s at. The radio is only as good as the antenna.

Also, the software they use (SDR# etc) gives me a headache, but that might just be because of my age – Lol.

Hope this helps.

Tim

[Adam WilsonParticipant]

Hi Tim,

Thanks, that’s really helpful.

I ended up getting an RTL-SDR type dongles just to have a play with. I’ve got it set up and I’m still very much at the beginner stage.

At the minute I’m mostly just scanning around, looking at the waterfall and trying to work out what the different signals actually are. I’ve picked up a few bits and pieces, but half the time I’m still looking at the screen wondering what I’m actually seeing!

I’m really just enjoying exploring it for now and hopefully the Foundation course will help me understand more of what I’m looking at as I go along.

Thanks again for the advice.

Tug

[Chris GriesParticipant]

I also have an rtl-sdr, I have rigged it to a 40m homemade dipole and running sdr++ on a MacBook Air it works really well and I can catch quite a good signal.
I have also made a jpole out of copper pipe which I’m hoping will work on 2m and to listen in on some air traffic.

[Tim NicholsParticipant]

I’ve just put up a 40m EFHW so I will try my rtl-sdr on that.

The J pole looks fun! I think I’ll try one of those with my Baofeng UV5.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 5 days ago by Tim Nichols.

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