SDR Sharp Dongle Troubleshooting

[Seanm214]

Hello,

I recently bought the RTL-SDR dongle. It worked great the first day but then the second day when you click on play you get error. On the RTL-SDR website quick start guide under troubleshooting this was one of the problems and it says in order to fix it you have to turn off windows automatic driver updates (I have windows 10). Does anybody know how to do this because I am not sure what is the right way to approach this problem. I planning on turning off the automatic driver updates and then going through the process of redownloading the whole SDR sharp program. Hopefully after that it will be fine for the next couple days when I shut down the computer and then restart it hopefully I can rerun the SDR Sharp successfully and hear FM radio. I want to create a desktop icon but don't know how and I also want to have a CTCSS decoder plugin (I think from the russian website) that is another thing I don't know how to get on the SDR Sharp. Somebody Help please!!!!

Thanks!

 

[Ubbe]

SDR# doesn't come with any drivers. You create the drivers yourself by using the zadig.exe program.
Stop the SDR# and click on the cogwheel in SDR# for the dongle setup. Look at the drop down list of the device.
If you see no selections there you have to run zadig to create a driver. In the zadigs options you select to see all devices and if you have the SDR dongle connected you will see a RTL device. If not, then try another usb port. Choose winusb driver type and click on replace driver.

/Ubbe

 

[spongella]

Seanm I hear ya. Ubbe has the best advice, run the Zadig program to reinstall the driver. Then shut the computer down and restart. As a dongle user for many years I've found that Windows very rarely but at times will cause problems with the dongle driver but simple solution is to use Zadig and reinstall. Have fun, dongles are great, so is SDR#.

One other thing, some computers having multiple USB ports don't react well when you place the dongle in another port, so if possible keep he same USB port, otherwise you may have to reinstall the driver using Zadig.

 

[Seanm214]

Seanm I hear ya. Ubbe has the best advice, run the Zadig program to reinstall the driver. Then shut the computer down and restart. As a dongle user for many years I've found that Windows very rarely but at times will cause problems with the dongle driver but simple solution is to use Zadig and reinstall. Have fun, dongles are great, so is SDR#.

One other thing, some computers having multiple USB ports don't react well when you place the dongle in another port, so if possible keep he same USB port, otherwise you may have to reinstall the driver using Zadig.

Thank you for your input. By any chance do you know of any CTCSS plugins for SDR sharp and how to properly install them?

 

[Seanm214]

SDR# doesn't come with any drivers. You create the drivers yourself by using the zadig.exe program.
Stop the SDR# and click on the cogwheel in SDR# for the dongle setup. Look at the drop down list of the device.
If you see no selections there you have to run zadig to create a driver. In the zadigs options you select to see all devices and if you have the SDR dongle connected you will see a RTL device. If not, then try another usb port. Choose winusb driver type and click on replace driver.

/Ubbe

Thank you for your reply. Do you know of any CTCSS decoder plugins for SDR sharp and how to properly install them?

 

[spongella]

Not sure but go to rtl-sdr.com, in the past they listed the plugins available.