I picked up a $100 Windows tablet this afternoon in the hopes I could migrate my SDR "scanner" away from a mini-tower thereby saving some electricity. I'm using Unitrunker, SDR# and DSD+. I've tried both the two dongle approach and a single dongle approach as well as a two dongle with one being run through rtl_tcp on a Raspberry PI.
I'm really happy and a bit amazed to report that the tablet is running the software packages better than either of two older PCs I've been working with. CPU utilization is reasonable and the decodes are at least equal to what I get using a PC.
I believe my decode issues have to do with being mid-way between two simulcast towers as I've had decode issues since day one, even after using DSDTune.
I had never tried the single dongle approach previously and I'm quite impressed with how well that works. It also gets around what I perceive as a deficiency in how Unitrunker switches to a higher priority call if found. I'll be at least trying to setup another dongle to monitor another local system to see if the little tablet can handle that load.
So far I've not even used this thing as a tablet! It's been sitting on my desktop with a USB wireless keyboard attached. I get the micro HDMI cable tomorrow so I can hook it up to a monitor.
FWIW I'm using the Winbook TW-802 from Micro Center. They currently have it for $99.99 in stores with the 801 model going for $119.99. Supposedly the 801 is a bit better due to a USB-3 port and support for higher capacity SD cards. I didn't have a need for either and had heard reports of the 802's screen being better so I opted to spend the $20 on a case. Both come with Office 365 Personal for a year.
I am truly impressed by this little tablet and can't get over how well it runs SDR# and DSD+. I knew Unitrunker would work but still impressed with that program in general.
I'm really happy and a bit amazed to report that the tablet is running the software packages better than either of two older PCs I've been working with. CPU utilization is reasonable and the decodes are at least equal to what I get using a PC.
I believe my decode issues have to do with being mid-way between two simulcast towers as I've had decode issues since day one, even after using DSDTune.
I had never tried the single dongle approach previously and I'm quite impressed with how well that works. It also gets around what I perceive as a deficiency in how Unitrunker switches to a higher priority call if found. I'll be at least trying to setup another dongle to monitor another local system to see if the little tablet can handle that load.
So far I've not even used this thing as a tablet! It's been sitting on my desktop with a USB wireless keyboard attached. I get the micro HDMI cable tomorrow so I can hook it up to a monitor.
FWIW I'm using the Winbook TW-802 from Micro Center. They currently have it for $99.99 in stores with the 801 model going for $119.99. Supposedly the 801 is a bit better due to a USB-3 port and support for higher capacity SD cards. I didn't have a need for either and had heard reports of the 802's screen being better so I opted to spend the $20 on a case. Both come with Office 365 Personal for a year.
I am truly impressed by this little tablet and can't get over how well it runs SDR# and DSD+. I knew Unitrunker would work but still impressed with that program in general.
