SDRplay RSP Information

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SDRplay

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We've released more information about the SDRplay RSP...

(SDRplay - Downloads)

Detailed Technical Information
Conceptual Block Diagram
Schematics

As well as details on the digital AGC scheme and a SDR# plugin.

The Windows & Linux APIs are also available for download and Android & Mac are available on request.

Comments welcome on here, our forum (All Discussions - SDRplay Community Forum) or our website contact form.

SDRplay Team
 

Boatanchor

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Thanks

Thanks guys, appreciate the info.

At risk of playing devils advocate, many people on this forum would probably be more interested in narrow mode (FM, FMN, AM, SSB and DV mode) performance of the various SDR platforms.

For those of us who are less interested in the 8mhz wide receive bandwidth capability (permitting ADS-B reception etc) that SDRPlay offers and are more interested in HF, VHF & UHF narrow mode performance, why should we consider SDRPlay instead of the the FCDP+?

Both units provide a similar tuning coverage and both units are are similar price point.

On paper at least, the FCDP+ appears to offer several advantages to the NB users.

Come on, sell it to us!!! :)
 

jonohudson

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Why the SDRPlay RSP is good for narrow-band

Many thanks for the opportunity to sell the SDRPlay RSP to you! Well, for the narrow mode applications the RSP and the FCDP+ are indeed very similar in that they do use the same tuner. The real difference is the RSP’s ability to capture and process wider chunks of spectrum which will allow for new features to be supported. Say you wanted to monitor two (or more) signals 1 MHz apart, you could set the bandwidth to 1.536 MHz and record the entire baseband spectrum and then demodulate in non-real-time. Before too long, we are hopeful that new software will become available to provide innovative real-time applications of great interest to narrow-band users - things like amateur band propagation monitoring (e.g. auto decoding of CW prefixes being received - telling you 'wake up - the VKs are coming in on 40m' ) or code based station-to-station alerting/auto-tune without having to pre-arrange specific frequencies. This benefit can only increase as such new software becomes available. In summary if you are just listening to narrow-band signals and that’s all you ever want to do, today the difference between the RSP and the FCDP+ is negligible, but over time the flexibility of the RSP will make it an increasingly versatile piece of kit.
 

KC1UA

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Agreed. I am curious about how this device handles imaging, aliases, front end overload, etc. as my primary interests are in chasing VHF and UHF DX signals. How is this device better than the "hacker" type devices such as hackRF, bladeRF, etc. Is it designed by people that have an idea about RF?

Thanks.
 

jonohudson

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SDRplay RSP behaviour re Imaging, Aliases and Overloading

Agreed. I am curious about how this device handles imaging, aliases, front end overload, etc. as my primary interests are in chasing VHF and UHF DX signals. How is this device better than the "hacker" type devices such as hackRF, bladeRF, etc. Is it designed by people that have an idea about RF?

Thanks.

Regarding front end overload , this VHF DX reviewer writes of the SDRPlay RSP, on Worldwide TV-FM DX Association ‘ My greatest fear, the fear of the SDR overloading (as happened with all of the RTL-SDR dongles I've used) was unfounded. Overloading is not an issue. ‘

Regarding image response and aliasing, when in Zero IF mode with I/Q correction provided by software such as SDR#, there is in essence no image response. Aliasing is a function of the ADC sample rate and the filter roll off of the analogue filters integrated within the tuner. The filters are programmable 5th order Chebyshev and so give extremely good rejection and also have extremely good signal handling. These filters combined with a high level of flexibility in the setting of the ADC sample rate means that aliasing should never be a problem as long as the part is set up correctly. The team is a pretty solid RF team 
 

KC1UA

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Thanks for the quick reply, Jon. I will look forward to hearing more commentary and reviews moving forward, but SDRPlay is definitely going to be a consideration for me.
 

Flatliner

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I'm getting the impression that SDRplay has been a little forgotten about. They need to push their product a lot more, as it's all airspy this and airspy that nowadays.
 

jonohudson

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Many thanks for the encouragement to spread the word! You are right that we need to talk more about the great performance offered by the SDRplay RSP. It's been a bit of a chicken and egg situation. We wanted to have some good reviews from some high profile publications, but for those we needed to provide the confidence that we are a proper company who can ship the product and stand by our guarantee etc. For this we needed to launch. Anyway in the 3 months since launch we now have some good reviews and demos to see on SDRplay
 

prog

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I quote scancapecode from another thread:

Even in my two biggest problem areas, which are around 152 MHz due to a nasty dirty paging transmitter, and 450-455 due to many super-strong DMR and NXDN control channels, are image free and are definitely better than my hackRF and bladeRF.

As you can see, in real world RF conditions there's a clear difference between cheap toys and the real thing. Airspy plays in the higher league with the bladeRF and the likes and even outperform them because it was designed by SDR experts who also designed the SDR software you are building your product upon. I still believe there's a place for everybody in this market, just be honest and don't sell the RSP as a high performance device. It's not. You can't fool everybody.
 
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Flatliner

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Grow up Youssef - there is no need to be such a pretentious oik. Unless you designed the components that are contained within Airspy, then they were designed by experts, of which you, yourself, have built your product on - a $10 TV dongle. And no sooner have you flogged 450 Airspy dongles, that you've already announced an "upgrade", simply to cover the frequency range that units such as FCD Pro+ and SDRplay offer already, out of the box.

And any "fool" can find a metric to compare an apple to an orange, and visa versa. But who really cares anyway? For years most of us have enjoyed $10 TV dongles, regardless of any limitations.

For most people here, this is just a hobby. We'll all grab the next shiny object, enjoy it, then move on. For the rest of us, who are RF related professionals, we wont be using a SDRplay or an Airspy, regardless.
 

SCPD

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For most people here, this is just a hobby. We'll all grab the next shiny object, enjoy it, then move on

And if a brandnew stallholder starts screaming "Real world! Outperforms! Real thing! Higher league! High performance! Experts! "from a soap box I move on anyway, sorry :)
 
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KC1UA

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And any "fool" can find a metric to compare an apple to an orange, and visa versa. But who really cares anyway? For years most of us have enjoyed $10 TV dongles, regardless of any limitations.

If you're referring to me as a fool, sir, while it may be semi-correct that is entirely unappreciated. :D

But you're right in one regard, who cares anyway? Let us buy what we want and draw our own conclusions. I was bitten by the SDR bug many years ago with my AR5000/SDR-14 combination. I moved on, got a bladeRF and a hackRF, moved on from the bladeRF and got an Airspy. I'm happy with it; it works well for me. I'm probably going to sell the hackRF and with that $$ I have a feeling I'll buy an SDRPlay. Why not? Fun hobby level stuff. I just grabbed an Elad FDM-S2 SDR as well.

The one thing I do know is that SDR's are here to stay and I'm planning on using them for the long haul. I'll probably never use a hardware desktop receiver as a primary receiver again; maybe to sit on a frequency found using an SDR, but probably never for searching for new signals.

I enjoy those $10 dongles too; look at what they have done for the hobby combined with the free software that has been made available for them.

There's room for everyone, and competition is good for all of us, especially the end users of the products. I'd rather see the competitors pedal the positives of their own products though and let the consumers draw the conclusions. We'll let you know what we think. So far I am pleased with the Airspy. It's doing what I want it to do. Is it perfect? Of course not, but what consumer level affordable receiver is? I've owned some beauties that cost me four figures to the left of the decimal point, and they've all been flawed in some way, shape, or form.

Have fun; it's a hobby.
 

Flatliner

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Bleedin' hell, no Scott. :D That was booted at Youssef "They're all fools, FOOLS" Touil and his "my Andouillette is bigger than your Cumberland " pompousness.

I'm too surrounded by a small radio shop quantity of gear, but those little RTL dongles... you just can't help but love them!
 

Flatliner

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And if a brandnew stallholder starts screaming "Real world! Outperforms! Real thing! Higher league! High performance! Experts! "from a soap box I move on anyway, sorry :)

It's starting to become difficult to remember if Youssef is selling Coca Cola, or Pantene.
 

jonohudson

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HDSDR plugin now available for SDRplay RSP

We've released more information about the SDRplay RSP...

(SDRplay - Downloads)

Detailed Technical Information
Conceptual Block Diagram
Schematics

As well as details on the digital AGC scheme and a SDR# plugin.

The Windows & Linux APIs are also available for download and Android & Mac are available on request.

Comments welcome on here, our forum (All Discussions - SDRplay Community Forum) or our website contact form.

SDRplay Team
We have now added a plugin for HDSDR. Take a look at our Reviews and Demos page on SDRplay which has links to Video demos showing the SDRplay RSP in action on the HF bands
 

scanner1969

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Any plans for a scanner plug in similar to the one for SDR#? I much prefer HDSDR but would like to scan preprogram frequencies at times.
 
D

DaveNF2G

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I know this has been mentioned in another thread, about another software program, but who besides SDR# has plugins for CTCSS/DCS, frequency management (including on-screen labels), satellite tracking, etc.? I would also like to see P25 NAC decoding and MDC, FleetSync, GEStar and other signaling decoders as plugins or features of some SDR program or other.
 

Boatanchor

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I love the scanner and DSD+ plugins in SDR#.

The Frequency scanner plugin in particular is just amazing. Being able to instantly search across an 8Mhz or more slab of spectrum and even set it so that it locks onto the strongest signal is fantastic. It works wonders on the Aircraft bands. There is even a rumor going around that the SDRPlay hardware will handle up to 12Mhz of instantaneous bandwidth :)

The standard scanner plugins are OK, but are a little limited in scan speed, presumably due to the tuning/locking rate of the R820T tuner. a Scan speed of about 80mS per channel is about the best I can do, whilst still getting a reliable scan result.

I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before someone comes out with a dedicated scanner program for these SDR tuners. The tide is starting to turn (away from hardware defined scanners) and as more SDR tuners get sold the demand for dedicated scanner programs that incorporates multi-mode DV decoding will grow.

There may come a time when it even becomes commercially viable to start producing such software.

Exciting times :)
 

Voyager

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Is that Greg's scanner plugin you're referencing? (Frequency Manager Suite)

Also, I doubt the commercial SW will be made that will add the proprietary codecs. Way too much liability. Providing it as a hobby is one thing - commercial is another ballgame. Deeper, more attractive pockets.
 
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