Airspy R2 or Mini for mainly marine work

[dpbarry]

Hi Folks

i currently run an Airspy R2 and an RTL SDR (v4) on the UK marine frequencies (R2 at work and RTL at home close to our lifeboat station) but I’m considering changing the RTL to an Airspy but don’t know whether to go for an R2 or Mini.

i’m a complete novice at this and moved from dedicated marine VHF radios to SDR’s and I like them. The Airspy R2 works great but I’ve been having issues with the RTL randomly stopping receiving - waterfall blank! After a restart of software, back to normal. It maybe works for a few days (or weeks) then does the same again. a bit frustrating and always at the worse possible moment as I’ve been using playback for training purposes at station in terms of radio etiquette etc. People hate hearing their voices in playback 🤣

As I’m mainly working marine band, would the R2 be overkill or would I see any benefits over the Mini.

Any assistance greatly appreciated

Regards

Declan

 

[BC_Scan]

its all about the antenna , the higher it is the further out it will receive , consider an older scanner as well , you can never have enough radios/dongles etc, personally I think for such a small slice of the VHF band here in Canada 156.-157 162. mhz for Weather channels a dongle is overkill as they are designed for so much more and then with addition of software a killer combo , this may not answer your direct question but i say it for a different perspective

 

[dpbarry]

its all about the antenna , the higher it is the further out it will receive , consider an older scanner as well , you can never have enough radios/dongles etc, personally I think for such a small slice of the VHF band here in Canada 156.-157 162. mhz for Weather channels a dongle is overkill as they are designed for so much more and then with addition of software a killer combo , this may not answer your direct question but i say it for a different perspective

Many thanks for that. I do get what you are saying though.

Unfortunately my antenna is as high as I can get it. I did bite the bullet and bought another Airspy R2. I had compared the R2 with the scanner I have also connected at work and the difference was like day and night for the same broadcasts so because I am having issues with the RTL dongle and having an R2 already I just went with it. More money than sense! LOL!!