RTL-SDR Blog V3 R860 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA Software Defined Radio (Dongle Only) (Black)

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/qsg I 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!

I'm using this RTL-SDR with a Raspberry Pi to receive the 433 MHz signal from my Acurite weather station, and it has worked extremely well for that purpose. Setup was straightforward, and paired with a 433 MHz antenna it reliably receives the signal from my weather station so I can bring the data into my Raspberry Pi setup. It has been stable and dependable and does exactly what I bought it for. This is a great little SDR for anyone wanting to experiment with receiving wireless devices or build a similar Raspberry Pi weather station setup. Very happy with it.

As an amateur radio operator, scanner addict, electronic gadget freak and lifelong radio hobbyist, this has to be one of the greatest "inventions" I have seen in the past 30+ years. It used to be that if you wanted a wideband, all-mode receiver with a spectrum display and more features than you could count, you would be plopping down a few thousand dollars for a piece of gear that needed to be mounted on a 19" rack. Now, for around $20, you can plug this little USB gadget into your computer and get just as good, if not better, results with free software. While I had read articles about Software Defined Radio many, many years ago, I never thought that I would be able to afford such a device as most early hardware cost as much if not more than a dedicated wide-band radio receiver. Of course, back when the earliest SDR hardware/software first came out computers were 10x the size and only had about 1% of the processing power as today's computers do. The fact that hobbyists were able to "hack" a hardware/software solution that does what this device does along with a program like SDR# absolutely blows my mind. To be sure this is NOT a simple plug-and-play device. The USB stick may plug right into your computer, but there is no documentation and no instructions that come with the hardware. None. Fortunately, there is plenty of documentation on the Internet to get you started. Even so, just setting up the proper drivers is a manual process and mastering the software will probably take you quite some time and involve more than a little bit of reading. If you know a LOT about computers and a LOT about radio you can be up-and-running in probably about 30 minutes after plugging this gadget in. If you don't know much about either you will really have your work cut out for you. If I tried writing a description of all the things this device and combinations of different software could do I could easily fill a 1,000 page textbook. The possibilities are nearly endless. As far as I am concerned, these SDR devices are the greatest invention since sliced bread, even if they cost $100. For that much money you could buy almost 5 of them though. I am looking forward to eventually upgrading this kit so that it can more effectively pick up transmissions in the long, medium and additional shortwave bands. The bands I have tried it on so far though have yielded incredible results. I couldn't possibly be happier with my purchase. On a scale of 1-5 stars I would probably rate this item a 10. Five stars is all I am allowed to give though.

OK, I'm totally new to all of this so I bought this dongle. I went to the "quickstart setup guide" listed on the outside of this device. Like the 3rd step said to go to airspy website and download their SDRsharp software. The website (as of 5/20/2019) has been dead all day. Crud! I tried the manual driver downloads and the Zadig download thing which downloaded, but there's no actual software radio since you still have to get a program to run the interface. So, I poked around other places and got some even cooler (?) software to run this thing: "SDR Console v3" from sdr-radio dot com. Downloaded, it took a while since it was 137MB. I plugged in this dongle. Nothing happened. Tried it over and over. Then I plugged it into a regular USB port on my computer (instead of one labeled "SS" and I heard the usual bing-bong Windows 10 has detected a new device being plugged in. Cool! I started up the SDR Console v3 software. It asked what dongle I was using and I chose "RTL dongle" or something very similar (I did NOT select the TCP version, it's the USB version). BAM: nice radio static. It was working!!!!!! So then I thought: I have no antenna, just a dongle at this point. Also, I have no idea what any of this is. So it was "RTL Dongle-R820T" in a new window > select Bandwidth = 2MHz (for no reason) > click "Start" > static! Then I went to the middle, left side of screen and clicked on "BFM" (Broadcast FM). In the upper left part of screen there is a "Receive" box labeled RX1. You click either above or below each frequency number to change it higher or lower. I'm in Detroit and a strong radio station is 101.1 FM WRIF radio. So I got that input into the type left. Still static...so I bent a metal paperclip straight and held it up to the hole in the USB dongle meant for antenna: BAM I COULD HEAR THE FM RADIO STATION REALLY WELL!!!!!!! Then up on the screen popped another window that said "101.1 Van Halen" and it was giving me band name and song title information of what the station was playing!!!!! So, that's how you get up and running in under 5 minutes. After this you can get a "Ham it up PLUS" box to plug in to this that converts ELF and VLF signals if you want to listen to military submarine base signal (cosmic rays and solar flares interfere with these so you can detect space and atmospheric events this way). Plan on buying various SMA adapters and antennas and adapters to plug those antennas into sma connectors. Right now I'm happy with my scotch tape/paperclip antenna. I'm still waiting for the other stuff to arrive (Ham It up PLUS converter, antennas, wire to wind my own 2' square vlf antenna, fm filter (glad I didn't have that working while I was testing, lol!), a powered lo-noise filter. These add-ons can possibly be powered by following the RTL website's guide to turning on "Bias Tee" which I *think* puts electricity through the device to power any add-on boxes you add to this thing (not necessary, but possibly fun). WARNING: I did get the Zadig software to work and did the "replace driver" step BEFORE I got the SDR Console software downloaded and running, I'm not sure if that helped or made no difference. So, I took the paperclip away and just touched the outside of the dongle with thumb and index finger: it got reception on that station too! Sounded great and on the screen it said "American Bad Ass by Kid Rock", so it's getting the digital information from the station in addition to the music! With no antenna! So, in the SDR Console software you can pick all sorts of bands: AM, FM, SAM, ECSS-L/ECSS-U, CW-U, CW-L, GBM, NFM, WFM, LSB, USB, DSB, Wide-L, Wide-U. Each one of these will require a different antenna plugged into the dongle: some just a few inches of thin wire or paperclip...some might need 30' tall coax, lol. If you add a Ham It up PLUS box it upconverts a lot more bands to be listenable, but I think you have to tune the software radio to 125MHz...and then you can listen down to ULF, VLF, LF, MF and HF frequencies. On Amazon I ordered one of those (the cheaper circuit board only) and a blue metal box to put it in, along with some other junk that I'm not sure if I'll need, but it'll be fun. So, that's how I went from ZERO radio experience to listening (at least to FM) with my dongle. Oh, the dongle gets pretty darn HOT to the touch. Click "helpful" if this helped you. I'm pretty good at updating reviews with helpful information--give me a week or two to play with this thing and the other accessories I bought. I attached a blurry photo showing the nice interface and me holding my paperclip antenna> You can see I set the upper left frequency box to "101.1". The middle left box has the "BLM" broadcast FM option yellow click highlighted. The bottom left box has a 250hz filter selected (for no real reason, it was just on). To the left of my hand a block box says "ON 101.1 One Metallica" showing the Metallica song "One" was playing. AWESOME!!! Now I'll just be researching other frequencies and their antenna requirements and buying or hand-making various antennae for fun. Once I get the upconverter (Ham It Up PLUS) I'll make a 2' square VLF antenna which is super-easy. Get a 2' picture frame and wrap a wire around it 40-50 times or 120 times depending on which website I'm to believe, either way: super simple. Oh, THIS DONGLE ONLY RECEIVES...you can't transmit with it. Although I believe if you do get a transmitter of some the Ham It Up Plus converter does support transmitting down to 300hz. Not sure if that's wise of legal or whatever, but this dongle is for listening only--which is fine. Hope this helps total newbies! Mike from Detroit.

Ok. I've been an amateur radio freak for over 30 years. I have owned amazing equipment, Kenwoods, Icoms, Yaesus. Huge yagi antennas. Massive rotators. Huge coax cables. Spents thousands just mounting equipment. I have worked all continents, all States and every area of the world. I've worked CW and PSK. This SDR dongle truly is a breakthrough for people who love the magic of radio. First, it shouldn't work as good as it does. A dongle coming out of a computer just invites a tremendous amount of electrical noise from the internals of the computer. Second, a $30 dongle should not give you such impressive reception at this price point on the receiving end. No way. But it does. Forget about all that you know about radios. SDR is amazing. Take an old Windows computer, pop the dongle in, load up some open source software and attach an antenna. Make note, all of this can be improved, but to get started it's amazing what this simple set up will give you. Gone is a physical radio that is expensive, weighs alot, and cannot be updated much, if at all. If you're a radio enthusiast like me, you'll have to admit that everything you knew about radio now has to be relearned. I want to thank the people who make these dongles, and for the incredible enthusiasts out there putting there software up on the internet for free. What a wonderful way to tune in the world. Amazing. Just amazing.

pretty cool little bugger, never used one before so i am still learning be aware they run hot, not hot enough to burn your fingers or anything, but one might think something is wrong when that is just how hot they are in operation. i bought a "ham it up" unit to down convert so that i could receive sw and ham bands below 25mhz along with the AM broadcast bands, without which this unit does not have the ability to resolve. also have to download the drivers and software to make it work on your computer, i use it with windows 10 and youtube "smokingape" or "smokinape" is your friend when it comes to getting this thing running. i am using it with a 9:1 balun and a 30ft long wire antenna inside so it is not at all optimal, but it seems to work for proof of operation. my next move will be getting a better antenna and mounting it outside. my use will be in the shortwave bands. so far it is great on the FM broadcast band, and with my poor antenna ok on AM broadcast, and somewhat works on shortwave below about 11mhz or so... i think the antenna is the shortfall. i would recommend it to anyone wanting to try an sdr

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.

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!

Great fun amazing product recommend for anyone interested in listening to whats going on around them in the world

si eres radioaficionado y no quieres invertir mucho, es para ti

Il dispositivo originale per SDR. Funziona perfettamente.

Everything works as intended. Product arrived on time.

Excelente, entrega rápida e eqpto funcionando