Dongle Question ?

[BOBRR]

Hello,

Forgot about having one, but just re-found a SDR Dongle I purchased a while
ago. Thought it might be fun to play around with it again.

But I would like to ask this:

Seems there is quite a proliferation of these Dongles in the last six months or so..
What I have is:

V3
RTL-SDR.COM
DVB-T+DAB+FM+SDR
RTL2832/U R820T2 TXCO+BIAS T + HF

Is this still considered a "modern" one, or for around the magical $25 mark there
are much better ones available these days that I should perhaps consider ?
If so, which please ?

My main interests are HF monitoring up to 30 MHz or so, and the aero bands around 118 MHz.

And, is it "normal" for it to get as hot as it, surprisingly, does ?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[wscranston]

That's still "state of the art" in the $25 range. If you go up to low three digit prices you can get something like an SDRPlay RSP1a which will be much much better on HF and "just works" with the very well supported (and free) SDRUno software.

And yes, it is normal for it to get very hot when operating.

 

[BOBRR]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the tim to help me.
Appreciated.

Regards,
Bob

 

[slicerwizard]

And, is it "normal" for it to get as hot as it, surprisingly, does ?

It's "hot" because it has a metal case. With the plastic ones, you can't feel the heat, even though they're roasting inside.

 

[boatbod]

Yeah they do get very hot when in use, which is why I strictly avoid "mini" dongle variants since they have less surface area to shed their excess heat.