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Saturday, April 25, 2015
"Dongle" USB SDR Receiver $13 (VIDEO)
I was recently commenting to Pete that I could use some gear that would give me a better means of checking the bandwidth of my transmissions. Pete. pointed to the latest issue of our much-loved SPAT magazine. Indeed on SPRAT 165 (Spring 2015) there is an article by Ken Marshall G4IIB on how use the RTL2832u R820T DVB-T "dongle" (USB stick) as an SDR receiver. I sent 13 dollars to Amazon. The device arrived yesterday. I followed Ken's instructions and soon I had the little device inhaling on 12 meters. It is really amazing. Lots of technology in a little box the size of your thumb! I use it with the free HDSDR software and have been listening to 12 and 10 CW and SSB. See the video above. Tomorrow I will attempt Ken's mod that will open up the other HF bands. Then I will be able to put to use a second SPRAT article about this device : Also in SPRAT 165 Tony Fishpool G4WIF describes how to use this device as a rudimentary indicating instrument for bandwidth measurements.
Great stuff. Get yourself one of these devices. You will in effect be getting an all-band all-mode computer controlled receiver for $13 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D3GRU24/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thanks Ken, thanks Tony.
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Bill
ReplyDeleteA couple more things you can do with the "Dongle".
I have used SDR# and the Plugin frequency manager and scanner I set it up to scan all the local repeaters.
Available at http://sdrsharp.com
The SDR software is limited in the bandwidth width you can scan at one time, this works great as a receiver or as test equipment for looking at the output of transmitter stages.
But there are times you want to look at a wider band, such as checking for harmonics. There is a Python program RTL Scanner that do wide bandwidth sweeps.
http://eartoearoak.com/software/rtlsdr-scanner
With a 100 Mhz. up-coverter, input step attenuator , and good shielding you have a usable spectrum analyzer for the HF bands.
If you can bring the receive IF signal out of your transceiver, it makes a nice panadapter.
DuWayne
KV4QB
Search R820T2 on Aliexpress, they sell for less than $8
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