I recently acquired one of these. When I hooked it up to SDR#, it receives VHF and UHF fine, but the HF end is completely blank. I checked the HF antenna connection and it seems fine. What's going on here?
I recently acquired one of these. When I hooked it up to SDR#, it receives VHF and UHF fine, but the HF end is completely blank. I checked the HF antenna connection and it seems fine. What's going on here?
If memory serves, you need a converter to receive HF. I believe their coverage starts at about 25 Mhz or so; apart from hams and CBers, there just ain't much here to hear. There's been several articles written on the Ham it up converter, and there are no doubt more of these....
Mike
Mike, there are a few RTL SDRs sold that have HF in them right out of the box. Some are modified for direct sample, some have the filter section changed, and others come prepackaged in a single encloser with an upconverter.
T!
I'm not exactly sure about the model number, but it has a separate antenna connection for HF. It's not the USB stick type, but an external box.
Is the box about 2" x 1.75" x 3/4", black with white ends? HF antenna jack on one ends and VHF jack on the other, with a slide switch on the end with the VHF antenna?
T!
We could use such a list of RTLs that are like that in our wiki...the article is linked in this thread....it would be useful information....TIA Mike
Maybe I missed it but is there a switch on the other end for UV/HF? If so could he be missing the offset in SDR# or whatever he is using?
Michael,
I'd be curious to see a few screen shots of whatever you're using on the software end (SDR#, HDSDR, SDR-Radio, etc.) and see what you're defining as blank in the waterfall. Are you getting any appreciable amount of background noise? Or are we talking completely silent?
Silly question as well, but what's your antenna setup for HF?
Rob
How are you powering it?I'm using SDR# and there is static, but it won't pick up anything. I attempted to see if it would pick up a local AM station, but it didn't. It seems that I don't start picking anything up until I go above 22 MHz. As for the antenna I'm using, it's an AOR SA2000 mounted outside. It worked perfectly fine with all of the shortwave radios I have.
I ordered another one yesterday (from a different seller). I'm wondering if there is some sort of problem with the upconverter because it seems to receive VHF and UHF just fine.
I'm using SDR# and there is static, but it won't pick up anything. I attempted to see if it would pick up a local AM station, but it didn't. It seems that I don't start picking anything up until I go above 22 MHz. As for the antenna I'm using, it's an AOR SA2000 mounted outside. It worked perfectly fine with all of the shortwave radios I have.
I ordered another one yesterday (from a different seller). I'm wondering if there is some sort of problem with the upconverter because it seems to receive VHF and UHF just fine.
Just ruling out a few other things. Are you using the frequency shift feature in SDR sharp? Does the upconverter have a 100 MHz or 125 MHz oscillator?
If there is an upconverter in there, I would imagine there would need to be a switch that would either allow passthrough or upconvert of the signal. Because there are two inputs for separate V/UHF and HF antennas, I'm thinking there should probably either be an upconverter switch, or two separate RTL devices in the enclosure.
On a personal note, I've had great success with the folks over at NooElec. You will probably pay a premium compared to the Chinese devices, but their RTL sticks, along with the Ham It Up converter, work very well.
It's hard to tell if this is a software configuration issue or a hardware issue here. See if you can ascertain the upconverter oscillator's frequency, and post a few screen shots of your software configuration and waterfall in SDR#.
Rob
Kind of a stupid question, but how do you take a screenshot? I've never been able to quite figure it out.