V3 R860 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA Software Defined Radio (Dongle Only) (Black)

Hey, if you dont know how to use a SDR, I highly suggest to look up a guide on how to start receiving with a SDR.I think its a pretty good unit, and as the title says, it's way better than the NooElec one that is in the picture. Now all the reviews that say its a terrible device, those are 95% of the time just user error. I've been using SDR stuff on and off for about 3 years, and there is a little bit of setup required, as with everything. Now I've been farting around with the NooElec one, but I decided to get a little bit of a step up. This has HF reception, just not very good in comparison to a proper transceiver. Its a good idea to get a proper antenna if you want to do some serious HF stuff. An alternate idea is to grab a balun, and a roll of speaker wire and split it so you have 2 wires then put it up as a dipole. And, you can even hook it to your rain gutters if they are metal, and use that as a receiving antenna. Cheap, but effective.Some people receive weather satellites with these, ive had some luck with the NooElec unit but this one just blows it out of the water. Ive used it to pick up images from NOAA weather satellites, and it does an incredible job of that, and my setup utilizes a LNA that can be powered by the built in Bias-T. If it gets too hot for your liking, you can ziptie a heatsink with a thermal pad to the back of it and cool down the RTL-SDR.I made sure to take a high res pic so you can look closely at the differences between the two SDRs.

I have the v4 version as well as this, the v3. While the v4 gets the job done, the v3 appears to work better than the newer version. I run an ADSB receiver, the v4 the max range was 103, and the average was 67. I decided to buy the v3, range is now 127 miles, average is 81. I ended up using the v4 for 978.You can’t wrong with either one, but the v3 works better in my setup.

I've only used this for a couple hours now, but man was this easy to set up and awesome to use. It is very fun to visually see and navigate through the radio signals. It took me less than 10 minutes using their quick start guide on rtl-sdr.com/qsgI gained confidence before purchasing this device from all the positive reviews of course and mainly their website. The website is easy to navigate and I was overjoyed to see how detailed the troubleshooting guide was, so if I ran into any problems I could very likely find a solution. It is nice to see such a detailed troubleshooting page with pretty much any possible problem that could happen with this device. Anytime I jump into a DIY project i'm afraid I will have to use google for 3-4 hours to find a solution. I only ran into one problem during set up with the software and that was on the step that said to run the batch file in the extracted folder of the SDR# software. Probably because I am on a Domain computer with security settings that prevent batch files from running. Well in that same step on their quick start guide they had a link to manually install the drivers instead which only took a minute to do. I followed the rest of the steps. Plugged in the RTL-SDR with my ICOM female SMA antenna from my HAM radio and sure enough it came alive instantly. I was amazed at how easy it was to set up. I turned up the gain in the software and I could start finding random HAMs in my area and various repeaters. I couldn't find any HF signals probably due to my antenna. Their website suggests getting a planar disk antenna or a discone antenna for listening on nearly any frequency between 25Mhz and 1300Mhz. My HAM rubber duckie antenna with this picked up a lot of signals from local FM radio, 136Mhz-900Mhz.This is definitely an awesome buy for the price of $17. I just bought a Uniden BC125AT handheld radio scanner for $110 earlier this week. It is a handy device since it is portable, but it has only a small portion of the frequency range compared to SDR. For $110 it isn't worth it for what it does so I am definitely returning it after playing with this thing. I'm excited to experiment more with it to find other neat uses for SDR.I highly recommend getting a USB extension cable for this device so you can have enough cable to work with. I happened to have a 10ft USB Amazon extension cable I bought a couple months ago that works perfectly for this. Since I am using this with a rubber duckie antenna it is about a foot long sticking out of the computer. Not an ideal location for this since it wouldn't fit well behind the computer and I would likely break it if it was sticking out the front of the computer. It would even be good for a laptop since all laptop USB ports stick straight out the side. A USB extension cable allows you to place the device and antenna in a much better location. My last recommendation for full use of this is a discone antenna as the company suggests or something better than a simple rubber duckie or whip antenna. This thing is too cool to only use it with a rubber duckie. Just buy it!

On windows or Android this device has some amazing capabilities. It merges the analog world of radio communications with the digital world. It allows frequencies to be isolated via a “waterfall display” that visually indicates radio traffic, signal strength, frequency and modulation bandwidth. This is a great cost effective way to start listening to short wave, you will also need a good antenna and I recommend putting this device as close to your external antenna as possible using to a USB extension cable to isolate it from external noise and forgo the signal loss in RF cable. My antenna and SDR device are in my attic… enjoy.

Excellent for my SDR P25 scanner. A couple of these and some free software and you have a CHEAP P25 police scanner, short wave receiver, ADS-B Plane mapper, Weather satellite recorder, FM stereo, and a NUMBER of other radio receivers!If you've ever even WONDERED what you can pick up on radio, these will let you know!!

A classic SDR, very popular. I'm a beginner so I have much to learn about RX. Is fun, but my software isn't intuitive. I like the bias tee function baut currently not using that.Start of a great hobby.

It is amazing what this little device (and the appropriate software) can do! I use the free version of SDR# to scan and listen to the VHF / UHF bands. The reception and sensitivity are excellent in this range. HF, on the other hand, doesn't work so well. I've never had much luck below 30Mhz. You'll need an excellent antenna and maybe even a preample to use this for HF, and personally I think there are better custom solutions for HF reception. But as a VHF / UHF software defined radio, this little dongle is absolutely amazing!Pro Tip - use a long USB cable to add some distance between the dongle and your computer. For the best reception, plug the dongle directly into your antenna and use the USB cable in place of coax. This both removes line loss and greatly reduces any RFI from your computer!

Has worked and held up good for a couple years. I use it with a adapter to plug into my Android tablet. The unit does get hot while in use but has not caused any issues.