newbi question

[mandcaff]

Ive been dabbling with sdr sharp for a month or so now using an RTL2832U R820T2 TCXO+BIAS T+HF v3. Ive had good success with picking up local broadcast such as police, fire, air and such, so i know that its set up and working properly. I have been trying to pick up ham, and have been able to receive one local qso, but thats it so far. I assume I have not heard any other distant ham transmissions for lack of a proper antenna, but anyway my question is, when i try to use ( Q branch) all I ever pick up is am radio broadcast (local) on any given freq, some stations are fro 60 miles away or better, so I dont think the signal is so strong that they over power any other type of reception. Is there a reasoning behind this? perhaps the wrong settings? thanks for any responses.

 

[bob550]

What type of antenna are you using? I just bought and connected the RTL-SDR Blog R820T2 last night. Mine is connected to a 70' end-fed long wire with a 9 to 1 balun. In my case, I had too much signal and was plagued by overloading. I placed in line an old TV signal attenuator I had hanging around, and that allowed me to reduce the signal level to a level acceptable to the dongle. At any rate, I was able to receive many hams as well as SWBC stations from Europe. Reception compared favorably to my other rig, an Icom R71A, although the R71 handles the strong signals far better without any attenuation.