Airspy mini vs RTL-SDR

[RichM]

I use SDR# V.1700 with my 16 year old laptop. It has been rock solid running the FastScanner plug-in on various air bands for a few years now.

It took a lot of testing different older versions of SDR# w/FastScanner to find one that worked reliably with my set up. The newer versions seem to have too much “bloat” and would occasionally freeze, act buggy or not work at all.

FYI you may want to start a new thread as this one is nearly 2 years old! Good luck.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my question in such detail.
It’d be great if someone from the forum could share a "clean" version of release #1716.
We’ll wait and see what happens.

 

[rabbit108]

 

[rabbit108]

v1700
Index of /software/SDRSharp

 

[KF5EGM]

The RTL-SDR Blog V3 is not a copy. I can’t offer a concrete technical explanation but in my situation (computer, location etc.) the Airspy works markedly better. YMMV

not sure if im resurrecting an old thread, didn't bother to check, but the airspy also has a higher bit depth, 12 for the mini and regular, 18 for the hf+ discovery as opposed to the rtl-sdr's 8, which means we literally CAN'T have as much dynamic range with the rtl-sdr, meaning the airspy is physically and objectively better.

 

[janeksp6]

I've been using about half a dozen of the RTL-SDR V3's (the legit ones) for about 2 years now, but as someone mentioned above.. you get what you pay for. They work, but I have frequent issues with either software or hardware. Does anyone have any experience with the Airspy on 800mhz Trunked systems? I personally use SDR Trunk, but I also have Unitrunker v2.

Portal index.sdrsharp.com

 

[wagros]

Hello, everyone.
After two weeks using the SDRplay, my conclusion is that I wasted my money—at least for my specific use case.

In terms of coverage and filtering, in VHF, where I do most of my service monitoring, there is no noticeable difference between the SDRplay and the RTL-SDR.



The SDRuno software is complicated and unintuitive, and I can't use SDRSharp, where I had a great memory scanning feature.

Fastlane also doesn't work well with SDRplay, unlike with the RTL-SDR, which frustrated me greatly. Fastlane provides high-quality audio to the demodulator, making P25 errors nearly nonexistent. In SDRuno, I still haven't figured out how to reduce errors, as everything is too complicated.

Additionally, the Fastlane scanner when used with the SDRplay is terrible—slow, with no delay options, no bandwidth adjustment, and no frequency description display. Moreover, it does not allow the use of a sample rate higher than 3 MHz.

In the end, for the same price, I should have bought an Airspy, since at least I could have continued using SDRSharp, which I'm already familiar with.

 

[foxtail]

So YT videos don't have enough info for you to use sdruno. I can find info there, all the time. Stay away from Linux then because it will confuse the hell out of you. Seems whatever software you use just doesn't work to your standard...maybe find another hobby!

 

[wagros]

Although you did not respect my opinion, I will respect yours.
But I STILL think that the learning curve of the SDRplay/SDRuno is not worth it FOR ME. I don’t have that much free time and I expect things to work more simply.
By the way, I made this post in the wrong thread. I was supposed to reply in another topic.

 

[tjnevins]

Did you try SDRuno's native scanner? (Mem or Range). I use it for my VHF scans, found it resonably fast and easy to setup and maintain. Also if you have specific issues or questions, I found emailing SRDuno's support team quite helpful and responsive.

 

[wagros]

Did you try SDRuno's native scanner? (Mem or Range). I use it for my VHF scans, found it resonably fast and easy to setup and maintain. Also if you have specific issues or questions, I found emailing SRDuno's support team quite helpful and responsive.

I liked the SDRuno scanner; I found it fast, but it has a lot of errors when decoding P25. Most likely, some fine-tuning is needed for the signal to reach DSD Fastlane with good quality.

I will try to get help from support, as I searched YouTube for detailed information on this specific issue and couldn’t find anything. It might also be a language barrier that is making it harder for me to find the right content.

But in any case, I appreciate your suggestion. I’ll give it a try!

 

[RichM]

I liked the SDRuno scanner; I found it fast, but it has a lot of errors when decoding P25. Most likely, some fine-tuning is needed for the signal to reach DSD Fastlane with good quality.

I will try to get help from support, as I searched YouTube for detailed information on this specific issue and couldn’t find anything. It might also be a language barrier that is making it harder for me to find the right content.

But in any case, I appreciate your suggestion. I’ll give it a try!

I have an SDRPlay RSP1 that I use for HF (it works great for HF) and I agree with you that it is not noticeably better than an RTL-SDR V3 on VHF. I don’t use either or my Airspy Mini for P25 so I can’t comment on that. I also agree that SDRuno is so substantially different from SDR# that it presents an entirely new learning curve. It does have some nice features but it is a different animal, I believe the developers did this intentionally to set their product apart.

Don’t be too disappointed, SDR is an emerging technology that requires some experimentation on the part of the user. You could probably sell it, they typically have a strong resale value as many people do like the SDRPlay line. Use the proceeds to get an Airspy and write it off as experience. The definition of experience is “Knowledge gained too late”. Good luck.

 

[sunwave]

Hello, everyone.
After two weeks using the SDRplay, my conclusion is that I wasted my money—at least for my specific use case.

In terms of coverage and filtering, in VHF, where I do most of my service monitoring, there is no noticeable difference between the SDRplay and the RTL-SDR.

View attachment 180617

The SDRuno software is complicated and unintuitive, and I can't use SDRSharp, where I had a great memory scanning feature.

Fastlane also doesn't work well with SDRplay, unlike with the RTL-SDR, which frustrated me greatly. Fastlane provides high-quality audio to the demodulator, making P25 errors nearly nonexistent. In SDRuno, I still haven't figured out how to reduce errors, as everything is too complicated.

Additionally, the Fastlane scanner when used with the SDRplay is terrible—slow, with no delay options, no bandwidth adjustment, and no frequency description display. Moreover, it does not allow the use of a sample rate higher than 3 MHz.

In the end, for the same price, I should have bought an Airspy, since at least I could have continued using SDRSharp, which I'm already familiar with.

Alternative worth noting:
An Airspy Mini is the same price range and will put any RTL-SDR in the rear view mirror. I own a Airspy HF+ Discovery not a Airspy Mini. As much as I hate to say as a RSP1a and RSP1b owner, the Airspy is a lot cleaner on the HF bands and VHF. In this hobby the phrase, "Your mileage my vary." speaks for itself.

SDRPlay devices work best in SDRTrunk. In my experience it was always really fast to decode. 1% error rate over an hour of run time.

With an Airspy product it's OOBE (Out of Box Experience) really simple in the Windows system because Windows winUSB driver is the driver needed. Just plug it in then windows will install the driver on it's own. Not even a windows update. For Linux/Mac I wouldn't know.

The SDRPlay implentation seems incomplete in DSDPlus Fastlane. The missing ppm correction option in FMPP is what kills it for me. DSDPlus these days don't need any audio piping at all. It uses TCP over local network on the same pc.

Return your RSP1b and use the refund for an Airspy Mini which will cover the frequencies you need. It won't cover HF below 24MHz.

 

[wagros]

Alternative worth noting:
An Airspy Mini is the same price range and will put any RTL-SDR in the rear view mirror. I own a Airspy HF+ Discovery not a Airspy Mini. As much as I hate to say as a RSP1a and RSP1b owner, the Airspy is a lot cleaner on the HF bands and VHF. In this hobby the phrase, "Your mileage my vary." speaks for itself.

SDRPlay devices work best in SDRTrunk. In my experience it was always really fast to decode. 1% error rate over an hour of run time.

With an Airspy product it's OOBE (Out of Box Experience) really simple in the Windows system because Windows winUSB driver is the driver needed. Just plug it in then windows will install the driver on it's own. Not even a windows update. For Linux/Mac I wouldn't know.

The SDRPlay implentation seems incomplete in DSDPlus Fastlane. The missing ppm correction option in FMPP is what kills it for me. DSDPlus these days don't need any audio piping at all. It uses TCP over local network on the same pc.

Return your RSP1b and use the refund for an Airspy Mini which will cover the frequencies you need. It won't cover HF below 24MHz.

Hello!
Although I don’t have much free time, I’ve been digging deeper into using SDRuno. I’ve already managed to stabilize the audio stream to DSD+ so that there are no more errors.
As for SDRTrunk, I didn’t find it that good — several times, even with a strong and stable signal, it failed to play transmissions. But I’ll leave that topic for another thread.
Unfortunately, returning the device is not an option due to logistics (I live in Brazil). I’ll plan to get an Airspy Mini and add it to my collection.
Thanks for your comment!