wv6u
Newbie
Hi,
I have an old Ettus Research B100 that had been hiding inside a drawer. I am starting to get back into radios, primarily looking at observing the hydrogen line, and ordered a brand new RT2832U based dongle. I setup the B100 next to it and realized the stock daughterboards are only good to 30Mhz. There is a TX board too but I am not too interested in transmitting just yet (I have other older HF/VHF/UHF radios for amateur bands). Looking to first setup myself a general purpose scanner/radio. On the B100, I can get a daughter-board that goes up to 250Mhz but for anything above it, I guess I will have to use a downconverter that will add to the cost of turning it into a general purpose all-band receiver.
So I am asking, is it really worth it? The radio isn’t supported by Ettus anymore and I found, most popular software like SDR# do not seem to support Ettus radios (at least not out of the box). In my limited understanding of SDR hardware, all I can tell is it can TX (with the right daughterboard, up to 250mhz) and it has wider bandwidth than the RTL dongles. Are there other advantages to the B100 that I am missing? Am I better off spending on newer tech for general purpose all band receiving? Also, would be nice if someone can point me to a good/concise resource for comparing SDR hardware.
Thanks!
I have an old Ettus Research B100 that had been hiding inside a drawer. I am starting to get back into radios, primarily looking at observing the hydrogen line, and ordered a brand new RT2832U based dongle. I setup the B100 next to it and realized the stock daughterboards are only good to 30Mhz. There is a TX board too but I am not too interested in transmitting just yet (I have other older HF/VHF/UHF radios for amateur bands). Looking to first setup myself a general purpose scanner/radio. On the B100, I can get a daughter-board that goes up to 250Mhz but for anything above it, I guess I will have to use a downconverter that will add to the cost of turning it into a general purpose all-band receiver.
So I am asking, is it really worth it? The radio isn’t supported by Ettus anymore and I found, most popular software like SDR# do not seem to support Ettus radios (at least not out of the box). In my limited understanding of SDR hardware, all I can tell is it can TX (with the right daughterboard, up to 250mhz) and it has wider bandwidth than the RTL dongles. Are there other advantages to the B100 that I am missing? Am I better off spending on newer tech for general purpose all band receiving? Also, would be nice if someone can point me to a good/concise resource for comparing SDR hardware.
Thanks!
