RTL-SDR Vs. SDS200 $35.00 Vs. $700

[kc2ubg]

I want to Broadcast my local Police. (Suffolk NY 1st precinct.) They are Trunked II P25.
I need to get a RTL-SDR or a SDS200. Will the RTL-SDR do a good enough job so I don't have to spend so much money?
Is the SDS200 that much better then the RTL-SDR?
Thanks,
Joe

 

[PDXh0b0]

You can't really compare the two. I Don't have an sds, do I want one? He'll yeah, but not a it's ticket price plus upgrades. The sdr route is going to be more than $35 , but no where near the price of an sds. Mobility isn't a valid argument between the two until you drop cellular wifi out of the equation. And you can do allot more with a few rtl-sdr's

 

[sunwave]

I want to Broadcast my local Police. (Suffolk NY 1st precinct.) They are Trunked II P25.
I need to get a RTL-SDR or a SDS200. Will the RTL-SDR do a good enough job so I don't have to spend so much money?
Is the SDS200 that much better then the RTL-SDR?
Thanks,
Joe

I think you will have to form your own opinion between the two. I for one cannot possibly compare the two because I do not own a SDS100 nor a SDS 200. It's way out of my personal budget. I have several RTL-SDR's, RSP1a, and RSP1b. I also use DSDPlus Fastlane and SDRTrunk. I like the arrangement I have. I do not feel the need to spend $650+ for a scanner because I have 1khz-2GHz frequency coverage without gaps (RSP1a,RSP1b)
and free APCO P25 PII TDMA decoding in the afore mentioned software.

Since I do not own any Uniden SDS scanners I have no opinion to blab about.

 

[jtwalker]

No way I would waste one of my SDS scanners for a feed. It’s too flexible & useful.

Also an SDR dongle (or multiple) can catch multiple concurrent calls which a scanner cannot.

 

[Jphila20]

I would vote - SDR.

 

[DC31]

Just my 2 cents worth. If cost is the concern, here is how I do it. A $35 nooelec smart dongle or similar. A $10 antenna that screws right to the SMA connector on the dongle to keep it neat. A $35 T95 mini TV box flashed with inovato firmware ($49 if you want to buy a pre-flashed box, inovato.com). That is all the hardware needed, no extras $. Install SDRTrunk and it works like a charm. Keep the processor load low by disabling the spectrum/waterfall. Probably it would suffer a little on a very busy system where you are trying to monitor lots of activity, but for my smaller P25 Phase 1/2 system it works well. Provides a BCFY feed and also a Zello channel.

 

[bucket772]

I have two rtl-sdr dongles serving 2 separate feeds, running off a raspberry pi 3b. Its been running flawless for years. All said and done, around $100 or so. You can then provide Broadcastify the feed and listen to it where ever you are. The audio is crystal clear and you save a ton of money. Also, if your County goes encryped, you don't have a $600 paperweight. I do not own either SDS but from what I understand, its great for simulcast P25 systems, but not as good on analog systems.

 

[kc2ubg]

Just my 2 cents worth. If cost is the concern, here is how I do it. A $35 nooelec smart dongle or similar. A $10 antenna that screws right to the SMA connector on the dongle to keep it neat. A $35 T95 mini TV box flashed with inovato firmware ($49 if you want to buy a pre-flashed box, inovato.com). That is all the hardware needed, no extras $. Install SDRTrunk and it works like a charm. Keep the processor load low by disabling the spectrum/waterfall. Probably it would suffer a little on a very busy system where you are trying to monitor lots of activity, but for my smaller P25 Phase 1/2 system it works well. Provides a BCFY feed and also a Zello channel.

View attachment 159177

This is a GREAT Idea! Cheap, efficient, and effective. Thanks!

 

[maus92]

The SDS200 would be easier to manage as it's essentially plug and play. But you would need to get Proscan to stream its output and that is a bit complicated to set up and an additional expense. A SDR solution would definitely be cheaper as the software you would need is free. If it were me, I'd invest in a wideband SDR like a RSP1A or Airspy mini or R2 - this would make it easier if you need to monitor a site with a greater than 2 MHz channel spread. Just make sure your PC is modern / powerful enough to host the SDR programs.

 

[LimaZulu]

I can only say this - I bought mine rtl-sdrs when they were 4$ a piece at aliexpress. That was, what, 10...15 years ago?! So 10 years ago I had in my hands everything that sds series ooffers these days against hundreds of dollars (not to mention additional costs for different modes to be activated). Nowadays cheap sdrs are like 15$ dollars which is still waaaaay cheaper than sds series, which are just a nice looking (at first sight) toys with features that require additional payment to be activated or are unavailable at all compared to available software options at the moment.
Let's be honest most of us monitor one or at most two digital modes. This is easily doable with one or two dongles which can be combined with various free software to achieve anything you want and need. And setup like this can be constantly modified as you wish. On the other hand there is no scanner that can do everything you need, so you need at least two for at least 600$ each. On top of that such scanners do have like 10-15 cool options of which you need one in particular
I think you all get the point. Do the math

 

[Computrguy]

I wanted to take the plunge into SDR. I bought a dongle. I tried 2 different software products.
Without a doubt the SDS100 is easier to use albeit some will say it is not easy to start with.
It is much easier than trying to figure out all the options of SDR radio dongles. I spent a few days and a many rabbit holes.
IMO one will spend a lot of hours trying to get the dongles to work. Time is money and I am retired. I'll take my SDS100 any day of the week. If you have lots of time to learn something new than maybe a dongle is for you. Not for me. But it really depends what you want to do with it.

 

[Jphila20]

I wanted to take the plunge into SDR. I bought a dongle. I tried 2 different software products.
Without a doubt the SDS100 is easier to use albeit some will say it is not easy to start with.
It is much easier than trying to figure out all the options of SDR radio dongles. I spent a few days and a many rabbit holes.
IMO one will spend a lot of hours trying to get the dongles to work. Time is money and I am retired. I'll take my SDS100 any day of the week. If you have lots of time to learn something new than maybe a dongle is for you. Not for me. But it really depends what you want to do with it.

If you don't mind what was the software's you were using? I am far from being a computer guy, but once I got it running I found it worked better than my scanners.

 

[Computrguy]

If you don't mind what was the software's you were using? I am far from being a computer guy, but once I got it running I found it worked better than my scanners.

I tried SDRTrunk and SDR#

 

[Computrguy]

If you don't mind what was the software's you were using? I am far from being a computer guy, but once I got it running I found it worked better than my scanners.

Which scanners were you comparing it to?
How were you using it?
How long did it take you to get it running?
How did it work "better"?

When I received my SDS100 it simply worked. It does a lot more than I initially needed but now I learn many things it can do. I update the database weekly and it continues to work. I travel across the country and with the GPS and Zip Code functionality it works wherever I go. It goes with me on cruises and it just works. These are important things to me.
Again, it depends how you are using it and what is important to you.

 

[Jphila20]

I tried SDRTrunk and SDR#

I've used SDRTrunk with no issues, but prefer Unitrunker. I like Unitrunker because once you have it installed using Zadig and finding the control channel it's just a matter of fine tuning the setting. If you do a lot of traveling then the SDS and GPS is the way to go. I have a TRX-2 in the car and at home it's all SDR's.

 

[LimaZulu]

I wanted to take the plunge into SDR. I bought a dongle. I tried 2 different software products.
Without a doubt the SDS100 is easier to use albeit some will say it is not easy to start with.
It is much easier than trying to figure out all the options of SDR radio dongles. I spent a few days and a many rabbit holes.
IMO one will spend a lot of hours trying to get the dongles to work. Time is money and I am retired. I'll take my SDS100 any day of the week. If you have lots of time to learn something new than maybe a dongle is for you. Not for me. But it really depends what you want to do with it.

I don't think software and hardware can ever be compared. Yes, sdr can't go without software but the complication alone comes from the software and not the hardware itself. Most of the "real" sdrs comes with proprietary software which is all you need and the rabbit holes you are talking about are from 3rd party software, which is exactly what gives you all possibilities and capabilities.
In the end hardware of software - the more customizable the more complicated

 

[DC31]

Just my 2 cents worth. If cost is the concern, here is how I do it. A $35 nooelec smart dongle or similar. A $10 antenna that screws right to the SMA connector on the dongle to keep it neat. A $35 T95 mini TV box flashed with inovato firmware ($49 if you want to buy a pre-flashed box, inovato.com). That is all the hardware needed, no extras $. Install SDRTrunk and it works like a charm. Keep the processor load low by disabling the spectrum/waterfall. Probably it would suffer a little on a very busy system where you are trying to monitor lots of activity, but for my smaller P25 Phase 1/2 system it works well. Provides a BCFY feed and also a Zello channel.

View attachment 159177

A couple hints if any of you try this:

1. install More RAM app. It is in Pi-apps which installs when you flash it.
2. The T95 runs hot. I have done experiments with it and find the orientation shown in the photo works best. With that arrangement, I haven’t needed the supplemental cooling fan. It runs much hotter with the sdr plugged into the usb2.0 port.
3. run SDRT from the command line with no gui. This avoids loading the spectrum/waterfall. I just ssh into it remotely from a terminal and control it that way. Use the gui for setup only.
4. when first started up it uses a lot of cpu for a few minutes and sometimes will crash. Maybe doing an update or something. Once it settles down, it is about 40% cpu And temp is in the 70’s C. Crash temp appears to be about 83C. Command to monitor temp is armbianmonitor -m

 

[Wackyracer]

I provide 4 feeds to Broadcastify using RTL-SDR dongles and old win 10 computers with at least 8gb of ram. 7
3 feeds are APCO25 system with 3 separate frequencies (1 for each channels) using a single dongle, the 4th feed is a Con+ DMR system, monitoring 2 sites, so 2 dongles are required for the software I use.

I use SDRtrunk, You may need more than one dongle.

It was not easy to figure out and I am tech savvy, I had to ask many questions and it appeared no one had the exact answer to get it to work as I wanted. I eventually figured it out.