RANT DON’T BUY NOOELEC PRODUCTS

[tjnevins]

I own a SDRPlay RSP1A and Nooelec SDR-RTL v5 ... I like them both. Stuck a passive heat sink on the Nooelec, which made a significant difference in case temps, which were easily verified with an IR thermometer.

Long story short, no regrets on the Nooelec ... I consider it one of the best bang for the $ SDRs. Would do it again.

 

[a727469]

While I understand your frustration, the question that I always ask when someone gets a new type product and has a problem is, what was your original goal and expectation in getting the sdr? You mention 2 meters and 70cm ham bands. I assume you will also try many other freqs on SW,AM Satellite etc etc. otherwise, again the sdr is not optimal or needed.
Also, in many cases an sdr is not an appropriate receiver unless you have time and patience and love to experiment. If you are this type, great, then I hope you continue and try other manufacturers that might better fit your requirements. Otherwise, I would stick with a regular receiver of some kind.

 

[EAFrizzle]

I've got several Nooelec products (2 dongles, regular and XTR, balun, filters, LNA and upconverter.) It all has been running 24/7 for over a year and a half with no problems at all. I'm very happy with my Nooelec stuff.

 

[BinaryMode]

My first SDR and first and only Nooelec SDR of the two SDRs that I own (the other being an RTL-SDR v.3) is the Mini 2 shown here.

Having used the Mini 2 a handful of times monitoring various frequencies, using it with SDR#, SDRTrunk and DSD+, I have had no issues with the Mini 2 once so ever. So the bold statement of: " DON’T BUY NOOELEC PRODUCTS HERE IS WHY:" Doesn't really fit into my personal experience with Nooelec.

Now having said that, and mostly being a consumer of computing hardware, I can tell you that duds roll off the assembly line all-the-time! And I can also tell you because of that I see negative review after negative review because of that one bad dud or batch of duds on various computer product consumer websites. It could be RAM, it could be hard drives, it could be power supplies, it could even be (and this is kinda rare) a CPU. I've seen it all. The moral of the story here is that even though SOME consumers/customers have had bad luck with XYZ company, I have never had back luck with XYZ company. And so too many others. And I'm willing to bet the positive experiences out weigh the negative experiences. I think if you're REALLY looking for a bad company with consistent bad products, buy some no name piece of hardware from China which Amazon loves to sell. Like fuses or some other nonsensical name for another cheap mass produced product. CCRs (Cheap Chinese Radio) are in my opinion another good example. I for one only buy CCRs for backup only. My main radio will ALWAYS be name brand. Like Kenwood or Motorola, etc.

I'd have to look it up, but I'm almost willing to bet Nooelec is ISO 9001 and what have you and offers better products than some of other no name SDRs you find on eBay et al. ISO 9000 family - Wikipedia

For your reference. You can pay a couple hundred or a couple thousand. List of software-defined radios - Wikipedia

 

[K4EET]

I’ll chime in to say that my Nooelec products are flawless and customer service has been great. On one order, they shipped the wrong product. I notified them of their mistake via eMail. Not only did they immediately ship the correct product that same day, they told me to keep the wrong product and do whatever I wanted with it. Nooelec is a great company to do business with!

 

[bharvey2]

I too have had a number of NoElec SDRs and I can recall only one failure. It was connected to a roof mounted antenna and I'm confident that died due to a storm event in my area. However, no other troubles.

The supplied antennas are useless for any real scanning/monitoring. I throw them out.

The SDRs do run hot but I have some that have run 24/7/365 for years and continue to chug along.

I've never had a need for customer support so I can't comment on that topic.

As others have noted, SDRs are plug and play devices and do require a bit of a learning curve to master.

You noted that the SDRs are "cutting out". Can you elaborate on that? You noted that it happens with and without extension cables. They are sensitive to USB connection issues so a problem with extension cables isn't a surprise. Good quality ones or a decent powered USB hub is a must.

 

[spongella]

I've purchased from Nooelec for many years, never a problem. Sorry to hear about yours though. I've found the RTL-SDR.com "dongles" to work well for VHF/UHF but I use an AirSpy Discovery + HF for LW/MW/SW.

 

[jeepsandradios]

I probably have 30-40 of them out in the field being used. Used correctly they work well. For my good stuff I use Airspy but alot of folks complain about those as well.

 

[kittrav]

I'm happy with my noelec version 3 been running 24x7 for 5 years. I had some initial seating problems with the USB connector. I put it on an extension cable it's been rock solid ever since.

Likewise. Had intermittent connections going direct to laptop's USB port, but no problems when using an USB hub.

The issue turned out to be that the SMArTee USB connector wasn't protruding out far enough from the casing to make a consistent connection with the laptop.

Disassembling the unit, and moving the outside locking nut on the SMA connector to the inside of the case, caused the USB connector to protrude further from the casing, fixing the issue.

Had to do this to two units, received about the same time.

Edited: may have moved a lock washer to the inside of the case, not the locking nut. Been quite a while since I did that.

 

[wa8pyr]

I own a SDRPlay RSP1A and Nooelec SDR-RTL v5 ... I like them both. Stuck a passive heat sink on the Nooelec, which made a significant difference in case temps, which were easily verified with an IR thermometer.

Long story short, no regrets on the Nooelec ... I consider it one of the best bang for the $ SDRs. Would do it again.

I’ll second this; I’ve got a couple of Nooelec dongles, they worked great from the start. They do get hot and that concerned me so I did the same, stuck passive heat sinks on which made quite a difference by itself. Pointed a small 12v fan in line with the heat sink channels and now they stay nice and cool.

 

[dlwtrunked]

Right now I'm just exploring 2 m and 70 cm for the most part which I have a comet mag mount attached to a pizza pan inside my second-floor apartment window. I haven't been able to really do much more than that because of the issues I've been having. I'm not sure how we would do a job on my balcony has that sort of thing is prohibited.


I contacted their support immediately and this has been going on and on and on.

Although I still buy from Nooelec. I had a similar issue some years ago. the more I tried to resolve things, the worse they seemed to get and it never really clearly got resolved. I just gave up as it was not much money. I decided back then they their customer service for failed/returned items must just be overwhelmed. It seems it was not or has happened again.

 

[donf99]

Delete if not permitted. I didn’t see anything that would not allow this but correct me if I’m wrong please.

DON’T BUY NOOELEC PRODUCTS HERE IS WHY:



Ordered the Following:

Here are the details and the full story. Please help spread the word!

• Order date Apr 23, 2024
  Order # 702-7859015-2928252
  Order total CDN$ 67.14 (1 item)
• Delivered

Delivery Estimate:

Thursday, April 25, 2024 by 8:00pm

View attachment 169861

Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 Bundle - NESDR Smart HF/VHF/UHF (100kHz-1.75GHz)

$59.95

Qty: 1

Manufacturer: Nooelec Inc., Nooelec Inc. 3-250 Harry Walker Parkway N. Newmarket, ON L3Y 7B4 Canada

Sold By: Nooelec Canada



**Product Review:**



I would not recommend this product to anyone. Here’s why:



1. **Poor Quality:** The magnet fell off the first antenna, which they replaced. Another antenna was improperly threaded and didn’t fit, which they also replaced.

2. **Unreliable Performance:** The SDRs kept cutting out on two brand new laptops (one Mac, one PC), regardless of whether I used an extension cable or plugged them directly into multiple USB ports that work perfectly with other peripherals.

3. **Overheating Issues:** The radio dongle gets extremely hot.

4. **Ineffective Support:** Despite sending dozens of emails back and forth with Support for weeks, there has been no resolution. I’ve sent 62 emails now.

5. **Lack of Customer Service:** You can’t even call the office; every number I’ve tried goes straight to voicemail. Email is the only support option, and it hasn’t helped.

6. **Unhelpful Retailer:** Amazon.ca will not assist me, nor the vendor leaving me with a non-functional SDR that I wanted to take on a trip.



Overall, I’ve wasted a ton of time and experienced a lot of frustration.

I had similar experiences with the NESDR product. Despite being advertised as having a more stable reference oscillator, I found it still drifted considerable as the unit heated up. It was marginally more stable than the cheaper base model.

What was horrible was that the USB connector would disconnect from the host computer if it were not plugged in perfectly perpendicular to the host’s USB receptacle. The slightest motion would disconnect it. I tried multiple USB extension cables and other computers. My original NESDR and a replacement had the same issue. This fault made the product unusable. However the cheaper base model did not exhibit this problem. I think this is because the contact traces inside the shield are set too far back from the tip of the connector.

Ultimately, I upgraded to an RSP1A SDR, which has a rock-stable oscillator, more dynamic range, front-end selectable filters, broader uninterrupted coverage down into the ELF region, and an AGC and LNA that work properly.

The RSP1A works wonderfully with SDRTrunk and Illinois’ Starcom21 P25 statewide system. Kane County uses simulcast sites. The RSP1A handles multipath like a dream. The 8 MHz bandwidth eliminates the need for dual dongles.

 

[KE7IZL]

Using SDR's is not plug and play you have so many settings to adjust per pc, per area, per what your listening pleasure is.
It is not for the unskilled pc user or people that do not have time to set them up to run efficiently.

It can be nearly as easy as plug-and-play if you just follow the instructions that come with the software you will be using to control it. I bought my first SDR as an RTL-SDR unit with e4000 tuner (extended tuning range). I got this one Nooelec - Nooelec NESDR XTR Tiny SDR & DVB-T USB Stick (RTL2832U + E4000) w/ Antenna and Remote Control - NESDR RTL-SDR Receivers - SDR Receivers - Software Defined Radio and I then downloaded the Zadig software here Zadig - USB driver installation made easy (software used to install generic Microsoft-signed USB drivers for running USB equipment that doesn't have hardware-specific Microsoft-signed drivers) and used it to install the driver (either LibUSB or WinUSB) for the RTL-SDR dongle. Whether you are using the hardware with the LibUSB or WinUSB driver depends on what the controller software is expecting. So when using a specific software with your RTL-SDR, make sure you carefully read the instructions for which driver that software will make use of when communicating with your RTL-SDR, because that will determin which driver you select from Zadig when you use Zadig to install the driver for your device.

Personally, I use the software HDSDR for controlling all of my SDRs, including the RTL-SDR. It is extensible, that is, all you need to get HDSDR to communicate with your SDR is a DLL file that uses the ExtIO API (these are called ExtIO DLLs) that was written for your particular SDR. This DLL acts as an intermediary between the actual driver and the HDSDR software. Of course, the DLL will be using either WinUSB or LibUSB (whichever driver the writer of the DLL prefered to use) so refer the the documentation for your particular ExtIO DLL when using the DLL+HDSDR to control your SDR device, so that you make sure to install the driver that the DLL is expecting to use. To install the DLL itself, just copy it into the same folder as the HDSDR EXE file. On my computer I have a DLL called ExtIO_RTL2832.dll for controlling the RTL-SDR from HDSDR, and to make it easier for you to get I was going to link to the download for it, but I can't find it anywhere online. It may be that it's just an older version of the DLL found here Releases · hayguen/ExtIO_RTL (the latest ones of which at least are just called by the shorter name ExtIO_RTL.dll). You can follow the instructions here http://hdsdr.de/RTLSDR_with_HDSDR.pdf for the entire process to get your RTL-SDR dongle running with HDSDR. It explains every step from installing the driver with Zadig up through getting the needed DLL file to allow HDSDR to actually control the RTL-SDR.

By the way, after further looking, while I didn't find the exact file called ExtIO_RTL2832.dll standalone on any website, I did find it in a ZIP package on the Nooelect website (specifically on the Downloads tab on the page for the RTL-SDR that I had bought). That ZIP file contains a copy of the HDSDR installer and the above mentioned DLL file that I could find nowhere else (it may be just a renamed copy of the ExtIO_RTL.dll file, or a separate DLL compiled by the staff at Nooelec, I'm not sure which), to make it very easy to get into using the RTL-SDR. The ZIP package is at https://www.nooelec.com/store/downloads/dl/file/id/61/product/191/hdsdr.zip
Note that while the webpage says this ZIP fiile has the latest version of HDSDR, I'm not sure how often that page (or ZIP file) was actually updated. I would recommend downloading the latest version of HDSDR from the official website (which as of right now is version "v2.81 beta13") to get the HDSDR installer, but if you want to use that ZIP file for just the DLL, I would recommend that since I know that DLL works (it's the one I've always used with my RTL-SDR).
The downloads tab on that Nooelect webpage also has this driver installer https://www.nooelec.com/store/downl...ct/191/nesdr_driver_installer_for_windows.exe which I've not personally tested. It may make it a bit easier to install it (if it's like just run it and it's done, no menus or options to set), if you don't want to figure out how to use Zadig, but since I've never used it myself I can't provide any help or actually say if it's easier than using Zadig. If you want to use the PDF file I linked above (which I found linked from the official HDSDR website) to learn how to install the driver, you'll be using Zadig for the driver installation, so since that seems more well documented (and I can say I've used it myself successfully) I would probably recomend that way.


Update:
I just downloaded Nooelec's driver installer, and guess what. It literally is just a copy of Zadig (version 2.7). So you certainly can use that to follow along with the PDF instructions I linked to a couple paragraphs up (which explains how to get an RTL-SDR working with the HDSDR software). However I still would recommend getting the latest version of Zadig from the official website (which is version 2.9 as of me writing this), in case it has any important bug fixes in it. Note that the last version of Zadig that's usable in Windows XP is this one https://github.com/pbatard/libwdi/releases/download/v1.2.5/zadig_xp-2.2.exe (yes that's the official download link for it). Note that the PDF file I linked to above at one point says to download the Windows XP version at http://zadig.akeo.ie/downloads/zadig_xp_2.2.exe but that is now a DEAD LINK (error 404 page not found). Use the Github link instead to download it.

 

[buddrousa]

@KE7IZL
So you claim that SDR's are as simple as point and click on the Windows Graphical Interface?
The last I used a USB stick it was handy I knew and understood DOS COMMANDS.
The last time I used a USB stick it was handy I understood 2way Radios and tuning receivers.
So you had to have a little understanding of both or you would not have got it work as easy as you claim.
So being a General Class Ham you may understand more than the general user on the street.

 

[cptplastic]

I just got 2 kits from Amazon SDRv5 No issues other than the USB connections being loose so I got a powered USB hub.

HUB: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SCX6I8A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

I have had zero issues after that. I don't use the ant. that came with them I have my own. I noticed that I needed to adjust the gain a bit per SDR but that may be to me splitting the single ant I don't know. I also keep them nice and cool.

 

[sempai]

i just remembered where i put a 14 port powered usb hub and this thread inspired me to reinit one of my raspis and move them all over 😂