Listening to AM radio using SDRSharp and RTL-SDR v3 blog

[my53Jubilee]

I am a beginner trying to experiment with listening to the things I can figure out with my new RTL-SDR v3 dongle. So far, I am able to listen to unencrypted local public safety (with SDRTrunk) and FM broadcast radio (with SDRSharp). I am using the dipole antenna that came with the bundle for these 2 successes.

I am not able to listen to AM broadcast using SDRSharp. I know it is at a different part of the spectrum. Do you have any pointers in how I can listen to AM broadcast radio with SDRSharp? Maybe I need a different antenna and/or different settings in SDRSharp.

 

[Randyk4661]

Under the settings in SDR sharp, set sampling mode to Direct sampling (Q Branch)
You need to do this for listening under 30Mhz.

 

[dave3825]

What part of AM? I listen to AM aircraft/federal with a 6 inch piece of bare wire on one PC, and 800Mhz antenna on another and a discone on this one.

 

[my53Jubilee]

I would like to just listen to a local AM radio station. 610KHz for example. How do you connect the 6inch bare wire antenna to the SDR dongle?

 

[Randyk4661]

AM broadcast is down at .530 to 1.7 Mhz range AKA 530 to 1700Khz
You are going to need a longer wire than six inches for AM broadcast radio especially if you are any long distance away.
The dipole antenna should be good enough for local AM radio

Your frequency display should look like
000.000.610.000

 

[PDXh0b0]

You could add wire to the end of your rabbit ears, make a ferrite antenna, make a passive loop antenna, buy a magnetic loop antenna (youloop, mla30, wellbrook)

 

[my53Jubilee]

Thank you. Are rabbit ears the same thing as the dipole? Can i just tie wire to the ends? Does it have to be elevated above the ground a certain distance? I assume leave it flattened out and oriented horizontally. What about settings in SDRSharp (other than the direct sampling Q Branch)? Gain, bandwidth, filters, etc.

 

[Randyk4661]

Bandwidth for AM broadcast is about 20kHz.
Don't be afraid to try various settings if need be. What might help you may not help me type of thing.
The nice thing about a SDR is you can play with various settings and can't do much damage, the worse thing is you stop receiving.

 

[Bobhifi7]

I was having a similar problem on my v4. I was using a long wire (not crazy long .. 40 feet maybe) ..nothing .. mla30+ .. nothing... bought a 9:1 unun nada... I was using a Pi3 with the PI-SDR image (that part worked great) but for some reason I could not get the AM broadcast frequency's to work. Thought about getting a spool of hook up wire and doing a proper long wire antenna, but decided to try a whole new install on a Windows 11 machine. Bingo .. it all works now. At least I have a baseline to start with. I think my issue may had been tied to Pi and/or the driver. I guess what I'm saying is ... if all else fails, do a de and re-install. Maybe even try a different platform.