Entry level SDR?

[dealbits]

After I shot down my own idea in my last post, I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good entry level (read: affordable lol) software defined radio? The funcube dongle, and softrock sdr. A really interesting site I came across looking for DiY SDR info is hackaday.com lots of fun info and projects there including a $25-30 usb tv-tuner dongle that picks up 3MHz bandwidth between 64MHz and 1.7GHz if you have the software to decode the raw output.

Winradio's stuff looks amazing, but the price is way out of my budget range.

Anyone have experiences with SDR to share? I like it because it combines two things that both really interest me, radio and computers.

 

[mkewman]

I bought an EZCAP $20 DVB-T Dongle for some cheap SDR fun. It's a lot of work (and a lot of reading and trial and error) but once you get it working, it's pretty cool. a great place to start is RTL-SDR community on Reddit

they've got a list of compatible models, and where to get 'em reliably. Any dongle with an E4000 tuner has the biggest frequency range. Be VERY careful and find out EXACTLY what you're getting before you buy the tuner. I ended up getting one that went from 70mhz to 800mhz. I kinda needed 800-1.1ghz :-/. Oh well! still fun!

 

[mtindor]

they've got a list of compatible models, and where to get 'em reliably. Any dongle with an E4000 tuner has the biggest frequency range. Be VERY careful and find out EXACTLY what you're getting before you buy the tuner. I ended up getting one that went from 70mhz to 800mhz. I kinda needed 800-1.1ghz :-/. Oh well! still fun!

I ended up getting this:

EZTV645 DVB-T Digital TV USB 2.0 Dongle with FM/DAB/Remote Controller-92096

I'm unsure if it'll come with a E4000 or an FC00012 or FC00013. It's in transit, from china apparently. Hard to find a guaranteed E4000 tuner now, or so it seems. I've seen reports where people ordered what is supposed to be an E4000 tuner model only to find when delivered that it wasn't.

No idea if mine will have the frequency range I need (preferred up to 1 Ghz, but at least to 870 mhz). I'll be bummed if I get mine and it doesn't go to at least 870 Mhz. I won't be bummed because of price [it was extremely cheap], but because it won't be of much use to me and it will have taken so long to get here to find that out.

I got an email on Aug 9 notifying me that the item had been shipped. As of Aug 14, it's still sitting in Hong Kong (according to HK Post and USPS). Then again, it's probably actually on a ship right now crossing the ocean.

Mike

 

[jazzbassNick]

That's exactly the one I ordered. Turns out it's got a Fiti 13, but I've have no probs with it.
Been playing mostly with SDRSharp and still just getting my feet wet.

FYI - the longest leg my dongle's journey seemed to be from NY to my doorstep (via USPS). The trip from HK to NY was actually pretty quick

 

[KC1UA]

I bought two of these from this seller and they work fine:

SDR: DVB-T USB Starter Set (RTL2832+Elonics E4000) USA Receiver Stick RTL2832U | eBay

This is a later "package" that contains some accessories for interfacing with various types of connectors, so it was $12 more expensive than just buying the dongle itself but may be of benefit to many.

Usual disclaimer: no association with the seller just a satisfied customer yada yada yada....neat devices and well worth the $$.