Information about sdr

[skatertj]

I have been looking alot into these sdr's receivers/dongles and would like to know more about them. I currently have a 106 and pro-2055, would a sdr receive more than a scanner does?

1. Is an sdr rtl dongle an acceptable starter into sdr receivers?
2. What is its advantage over a scanner? Any at all?
3. Does price matter when buying an rtl dongle? I see them anywhere from $8-$23 on amazon.

Thank you for any help and if you have any good information for me about getting into sdr realm, please let me know. I think it would be cool to get one to just mess around with and see what they can do.

 

[Arkmood]

Thank you for any help and if you have any good information for me about getting into sdr realm, please let me know. I think it would be cool to get one to just mess around with and see what they can do.

It's very cool, you'll be on the fast track with SDR - it's the wave of the furture. Jump on it and you won't regret it. The Pro 106's great, but can it receive LSB, USB, WFM, let you look up and down the band in real time to see signals pop up out of the noise floor, use BW filters/adj.BW filters, RF gain/adj.RF gain, give you the ability to set up a home aircraft radar system - SDR will open up a whole differnt world for you, for $20 you can't go wrong.

Here's a good one to start with:

Amazon.com: NooElec Brand RTL-SDR, FM+DAB, DVB-T USB Stick Set with RTL2832U & R820T. Great SDR for SDR#, HDSDR, and Other Popular SDR Software Packages!: Electronics

Be sure to look into any adapters you may need to use different antennas - that's really the only downside...

 

[DaveNF2G]

Given the difficulties that even the computer and radio literate have getting set up, I would not say that SDR is a beginner's hobby.

 

[skatertj]

I will look into getting one. I have pretty good knowledge of computers and scanners alike so tackling an sdr shouldnt bother me too much.

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[fourthhorseman]

Do your self a favor..
Get an upconverter also..

Look for the RTLSDR dongle
that carries the E4000 tuner chip..

Hardest part is finding the driver so get the
software to see your dongle..SDRSharp
works good for many and adding plugins
is a breeze..

 

[DaveNF2G]

Hardest part is finding the driver so get the
software to see your dongle..SDRSharp
works good for many and adding plugins
is a breeze..

The level of difficulty seems to depend on the operating system (i.e., version of Windows) being used. Later Windows = More Problems.

There is an SDR installation script available (it automatically installs SDRSharp and uses Zadig to install the correct drivers, downloading the latest of everything automatically). I recommend using it just as it runs. People who try to pre-analyze the script or get it to work according to what they think "should be" happening have the most problems.

The script can be found at SDR# | A Software Defined Radio in C#

 

[skatertj]

Ive been trying to find a dongle with the e4000 but none have really said that they have that chip. I have looked into an upconverter and do plan on getting on later on. Also, im running vista on my laptop which i plan to use it on. I have a intel duo running i 2.6ghz i believe. I have read that my computer should handle it just fine.

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[Token]

Do your self a favor..
Get an upconverter also..

Look for the RTLSDR dongle
that carries the E4000 tuner chip..

Why do you say use the E4000 instead of the R820T? While I have played around with the dongles I actually seldom use them as I have other hardware that covers the same capability. I might not be aware of the nuances between the two that a regular user sees.

I know the E4000 goes a bit higher in freq, but there is very little to hear in the enhanced upper freq coverage. The R820T goes lower in freq, and that few MHz lower is more usable than the extra high freq coverage of the E4000.

I have 2 copies of each kind here, the E4000 and the R820T. In the examples I have I find the R820T to have a lower noise floor and several dB more sensitivity. It also has a narrower DC spike, probably indicating better phase noise.

T!

 

[fourthhorseman]

Exactly,the E4k gives a lil more on the high end,but most will add an upconverter
and get the lower coverage anyway..

Thats my thinking..

With that said,Ive no first hand exp with the 820..I went with the 4K for the extra mhz..
Im looking at picking up a 3rd and I think I may try the 820 for the noise issue.

 

[aharry]

They are both amazing and fun, as long as you keep a couple of things in mind:

1. They were never designed for general SDR use, so don't try to compare them to true and expensive purpose built SDR hardware.

2. They are $20 or less, see #1.

I have a couple with the 820T tuner and they really are a lot of fun and amazing devices for the money. SDR# is also an excellent package. The only real complaint I have with SDR# is the default setup turns AGC off and the gain to 0. Guess what you receive with the default settings? NOTHING.

It is probably the single biggest question asked about SDR#; Is my dongle bad because I can not receive anything but a faint signal from a huge FM broadcast station? So remember, once you get SDR# running and the dongle recognized, click the "Configure" button and crank the gain up!

 

[fourthhorseman]

Ive been trying to find a dongle with the e4000 but none have really said that they have that chip. I have looked into an upconverter and do plan on getting on later on. Also, im running vista on my laptop which i plan to use it on. I have a intel duo running i 2.6ghz i believe. I have read that my computer should handle it just fine.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

THis is where I got my 2 from,the e4k is in it and it comes with the PAL to F adapter..
They also ship from the USA got mine in about 4 days here in philly..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Realtek-RTL...eo_Capture_TV_Tuner_Cards&hash=item460b652ccf

Ive no relation to the seller.

 

[skatertj]

Alright, so heres my biggest use for the dongle. To listen to a rebanded 800mhz trunked system. My 106 does receive it, but i use my 106 to go back and forth in my car and home, and would like a radio to just stay in my room for this system. Is the 20 bucks used for the sdr worth it in this case? I may even use it with a upconverter for shortwave but no guarantee of that yet. Otherwise, the sdr would just be used as another radio for skywarn or ham operators during storms.

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[aharry]

Alright, so heres my biggest use for the dongle. To listen to a rebanded 800mhz trunked system. My 106 does receive it, but i use my 106 to go back and forth in my car and home, and would like a radio to just stay in my room for this system. Is the 20 bucks used for the sdr worth it in this case? I may even use it with a upconverter for shortwave but no guarantee of that yet. Otherwise, the sdr would just be used as another radio for skywarn or ham operators during storms.

Probably not very well at this point. The dongles are mostly good for experimentation. As such there is a hodge podge set of tools available built by different people for different things. For example...

1) SDR# can be used as the receiver but it does not do much other than receiving and demodulating the radio signal.
2) Unitrunker the well known trunking system tracker can be fed a control channel signal from SDR# using various virtual audio cable tools around.
3) SDR# does support plugins and someone has developed a plugin that will receive trunking info from Unitrunker and tune to an active voice channel frequency and then back to the control channel.
4) If the system is digital you would then have to route the voice channel to a program called DSD that attempts (and that is being gracious) to decode the digital audio.

I am sure someone will eventually build a scanner like program that does all of the above in one package. But trying to get all the above working together seamlessly is a challenge, and when you do you still do not have scanner like ability to choose the talk-groups you want to monitor (and those you don't)

If the system is not digital a second hand trunking scanner is much more functional for probably not much more investment. For a digital system well, I hope you have a lot of hair because you'll certainly be losing a good bit.

 

[Astrak]

I am sure someone will eventually build a scanner like program that does all of the above in one package. But trying to get all the above working together seamlessly is a challenge, and when you do you still do not have scanner like ability to choose the talk-groups you want to monitor (and those you don't)
.

You can setup Unitrunker to follow talkgroups you want and ignore talkgroups you don't from what I remember.

 

[aharry]

You can setup Unitrunker to follow talkgroups you want and ignore talkgroups you don't from what I remember.

Probably so, but the whole scenario described above is such a kludge it is an experimenter's dream, but a long way from replacing a simple trunking scanner. Especially when you consider that for it to be really functional takes some horsepower, so you are not going to get away with using the old Pentium 4 in the corner.

 

[pgnsucks]

The level of difficulty seems to depend on the operating system (i.e., version of Windows) being used. Later Windows = More Problems.

There is an SDR installation script available (it automatically installs SDRSharp and uses Zadig to install the correct drivers, downloading the latest of everything automatically). I recommend using it just as it runs. People who try to pre-analyze the script or get it to work according to what they think "should be" happening have the most problems.

The script can be found at SDR# | A Software Defined Radio in C#

Hey thanks for the link Win 7 64bit still using Admin privileges still no luck it will work on my Vista laptop just not Win 7 64bit.
Any ideas, software, utilities etc... I tried the Test program it just pops up then goes away.
The SDR application clicking the exe the machine acts like it is doing something then nothing happens.

 

[sphipps]

Hey thanks for the link Win 7 64bit still using Admin privileges still no luck it will work on my Vista laptop just not Win 7 64bit.
Any ideas, software, utilities etc... I tried the Test program it just pops up then goes away.
The SDR application clicking the exe the machine acts like it is doing something then nothing happens.

I have SDRsharp / Unitrunker / DSD running via Win 7 64bit on an Intel Core Duo laptop with 4GB RAM without issues. It also runs fine via Win 8 64bit.

Clicking on SDRsharp and not having it execute is fairly common. I'd suggest deleting and reinstalling.

You're going to need a computer with sufficient processing resources to especially run SDRsharp and DSD if monitoring digital systems. Running both will easily peak an older single core processor at 100% CPU utilization and performance will be dismal. An Intel Core Duo or better is preferred and you want 80% or lower CPU utilization with everything running.

Get everything working well and you'll wonder why you haven't tried RTL SDR before now...

 

[KC4RAF]

For those who don't want to pay

the 25 to 50 dollars for the VAC software to just play around with SDR dongles, here's a free/donate vac software link:

Free Virtual Audio Cable Alternative - rtl-sdr.com

Just click on the "VB-Cable" listed in the second paragraph.

 

[skatertj]

Alright im still at work but i will check my computer specs when im off. I dont have any digital signals i plan to listen to with it unless someone found a way to decode opensky with one. Would it be worth it to buy one and try it out? I do plan to use it on a standard analog 800mhz reband system so i dont have to always have my 106 on that system. Otherwise it would just be experimental stuff in my area.

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[Tweekerbob]

I would urge you to get 2 dongles for monitoring a trunked system. It doubles your pleasure, doubles your fun.

I would also recommend the 820T over the E4000. I have both and so far, much prefer the 820T. I got two for $32 here.

With a two receiver set-up you can have one receiver constantly tuned to the control channel and that info is fed into Unitrunker. Unitrunker then controls the second receiver through SDR# and tunes to an active TGID. The cool part is that you can set different priorities (from #1 to #100) to each TGID. With constant monitoring of the control channel, if a call on a higher priority TGID comes up, the current call will be preempted and the receiver will quickly tune to the higher priority call. So you asked, "What can an SDR do that my scanner can't?" Well, that's one thing you scanner can't do.