Knockoff rdl-sdr

trimmerj

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Joined
Jan 20, 2004
Messages
383
Location
Pasadena, MD
So I bought 3 of these v3 sdr's before finding out that they were bogus. Now I'm stuck with them. Definitely won't handle op25, but are there any programs that will work?
 

trimmerj

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2004
Messages
383
Location
Pasadena, MD
Have a bunch of computers running Linux and Win7/10. I went round and round with op25 not working on a Ubantu box. Finally I bought a legit sdr and the pgm worked perfectly. I fooled around with Sdr# with the fake dongles, but operation was erratic. I'd like to be able to scan DMR frequency lists.
 

merlin

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Jul 3, 2003
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DN32su
Sometimes buying cheap is more expensive. Thats how capitalism works.
 

lwvmobile

DSD-FME
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Apr 26, 2020
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Lafayette County, FL
Some of those cheap "fake" dongles can have PPM errors that are vastly wild in comparison to the + or - 2.0, so might be worth your while to open up GQRX, SDR++, SDR# or whatever and tune to an FM radio station, NOAA weather, known good frequency and see if you can figure out what your PPM might be. I have one el cheapo dongle with a PPM error of 54.
 

saioke

Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
90
I was thinking about buying one of those cheap $15-17 dollar dongles on eBay to monitor more P25 sites but good lord, I think I'll hold off now after hearing about such high PPM drift. My RTLSDR Blog v4 has about a 0.8, 1.0, or maybe 1.2 drift. Can't seem to figure it out honestly but at 1.0 in DSD+ Fast Lane, the Hz sticks anywhere between +20-250. I think +1.0 is correct. Don't really have any issues decoding unless I have bad weather.

If there's a PPM of 54 I can't imagine how often you'd need to constantly correct it due to temperature changes.
 
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