I'm a total newbie, and just wanted to write up my experiences so far in case it helps any newbies, or in case anyone has addl tips for me.
Current setup- SDRtrunk, rtl-sdr.com, Intel PC windows
What I use now that is working very well is 2 cheap rtl-sdr.com dongles from amazon, used, for about $30 each. So RTL2832U. And an INTEL pc, with windows. One is v3 ( R828T )and one is v4 (R828D ). I live in a city with strong signals on a P25 trunked system and other systems (analog? I'm still learning terms), and just use 2 super crappy cheap temu antennas. My only complaint is that sdrtrunk does not seem to have the ability to auto adjust squelch on like a police scanner does on the non-trunked systems, so every transmission ends with a loud short blurb of static. Manually adjusting the squelch means the next day if the signal is weaker, some of the calls get cut off. So a work in progress!
Potato/trunk-recorder
I started out completely new with a donated Potato (basically a raspberry pi) and 2 generic dongles marked DVB-T+DAB+FM (which apparently is FC0012/FC0013), with trunk recorder. Worked great to listen to strong local signals in the 150-160mhz bands. I gave it a static IP, and used no-ip on my pc to give it a web domain so I could see recordings from anywhere. I haven't done linux in 25 years, so it was a bit of a struggle finding my way around.
Old dongles on PC
Getting it configured to work with the local p25 system also though was just not going well. So we decided to switch to a PC and try sdrtrunk. Turns out these generic dongles are FC0012/FC0013, which aren't supported by sdrtrunk argh. someone did make a fork that DOES support these dongles - but there were 2 problems: 1 they refused to record, and either openmhz or radioreference wasn't a streaming option in that older version.
New dongles on AMD
So then I bought the rtl-sdr.com dongles. Got those working pretty easily in latest sdr-trunk, but I gotta say there were soooo many bugs. Constant bus and pipe errors. If you even breathed on the dongles, they lost connection. If you stopped and restarted, half the time it would only let you use one dongle even though it could see 2. broadcastify constantly connected and kicked the connection because it thought there were duplicates.
I did all the suggestions - updating the drivers, powered hubs (including 2.0), plugging into completely different usb ports directly on the machine, shorter cords, you name it.
Moved to Intel
All the problems completely went away when I move it to an older (still very current) intel PC. Things boot up with no errors, and they stay up. It doesn't care which hub or usb ports I use. I wish I hadn't wasted a month on the AMD!
25 miles is too far
I'd like to also get police signals from the next county (on an additional dongle), where the repeater is 25 miles away. But on days where I can get anything, it's very weak and mostly unintelligible. I tried putting my tv antenna on it (the cheap walmart General Electric Outdoor HDTV Antenna, 70-mile Range, VHF 1080P 4K, Black). Both outside and in an upstairs by a window, with a short shielded coax to the pc. I think I would need to go taller to have any hope, but I don't know why since 25 miles doesn't seem that far. Must be some interference in the way I guess. I'm assuming a different type of antenna might now help, but I don't know. My bcd 436 police scanner with stock antenna gets a slightly better signal than the dongles with any antenna.
That is where I'm at so far. That and trying to plow my way though an amateur license. My head is swimming! But happily.
Current setup- SDRtrunk, rtl-sdr.com, Intel PC windows
What I use now that is working very well is 2 cheap rtl-sdr.com dongles from amazon, used, for about $30 each. So RTL2832U. And an INTEL pc, with windows. One is v3 ( R828T )and one is v4 (R828D ). I live in a city with strong signals on a P25 trunked system and other systems (analog? I'm still learning terms), and just use 2 super crappy cheap temu antennas. My only complaint is that sdrtrunk does not seem to have the ability to auto adjust squelch on like a police scanner does on the non-trunked systems, so every transmission ends with a loud short blurb of static. Manually adjusting the squelch means the next day if the signal is weaker, some of the calls get cut off. So a work in progress!
Potato/trunk-recorder
I started out completely new with a donated Potato (basically a raspberry pi) and 2 generic dongles marked DVB-T+DAB+FM (which apparently is FC0012/FC0013), with trunk recorder. Worked great to listen to strong local signals in the 150-160mhz bands. I gave it a static IP, and used no-ip on my pc to give it a web domain so I could see recordings from anywhere. I haven't done linux in 25 years, so it was a bit of a struggle finding my way around.
Old dongles on PC
Getting it configured to work with the local p25 system also though was just not going well. So we decided to switch to a PC and try sdrtrunk. Turns out these generic dongles are FC0012/FC0013, which aren't supported by sdrtrunk argh. someone did make a fork that DOES support these dongles - but there were 2 problems: 1 they refused to record, and either openmhz or radioreference wasn't a streaming option in that older version.
New dongles on AMD
So then I bought the rtl-sdr.com dongles. Got those working pretty easily in latest sdr-trunk, but I gotta say there were soooo many bugs. Constant bus and pipe errors. If you even breathed on the dongles, they lost connection. If you stopped and restarted, half the time it would only let you use one dongle even though it could see 2. broadcastify constantly connected and kicked the connection because it thought there were duplicates.
I did all the suggestions - updating the drivers, powered hubs (including 2.0), plugging into completely different usb ports directly on the machine, shorter cords, you name it.
Moved to Intel
All the problems completely went away when I move it to an older (still very current) intel PC. Things boot up with no errors, and they stay up. It doesn't care which hub or usb ports I use. I wish I hadn't wasted a month on the AMD!
25 miles is too far
I'd like to also get police signals from the next county (on an additional dongle), where the repeater is 25 miles away. But on days where I can get anything, it's very weak and mostly unintelligible. I tried putting my tv antenna on it (the cheap walmart General Electric Outdoor HDTV Antenna, 70-mile Range, VHF 1080P 4K, Black). Both outside and in an upstairs by a window, with a short shielded coax to the pc. I think I would need to go taller to have any hope, but I don't know why since 25 miles doesn't seem that far. Must be some interference in the way I guess. I'm assuming a different type of antenna might now help, but I don't know. My bcd 436 police scanner with stock antenna gets a slightly better signal than the dongles with any antenna.
That is where I'm at so far. That and trying to plow my way though an amateur license. My head is swimming! But happily.
