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

Ive tried many different settings and done a lot of research on this and I am disappointed in the receive quality. I have even hooked it to my transmit antenna and seen very little difference in gain. Signals have to have the meter on the radio pegged in the corner before you can hear them on this SDR. Maybe my expectations were too high but I am pretty bummed about its quality of receive and dont even use it anymore.

Bought this one to replace one of the cheaper dongles. It is being used to decode and display weather balloons in US on Sondehub.org. Increased reception almost twice what the old dongle could receive with a much lower noise floor.

Product as represented.

This takes a little work to use but compared to a regular scanner you cant beat the price for the range it picks up. Yes its got some issues, but nothing comes close to being able to do what this does for the price. So far Ive listened to PD, NOAA, FM broadcast (music statioins), CB, airband, decoded pagers, WWV, HAM, and more. This is not for the novice but there are plenty of YouTube videos on what you can do and how to do it for this receiver. This would be an excellent gift for a teenager interested in radio (and yes itll receive image data too, like wether maps directly from satellites). A good computer is required to use it. Software exists for both Windows and Mac systems.

It works, but...it is mainly designed for the VHF and UHF range of 24Mhz and up. While, yes, it can receive HF, its effectiveness at receiving those frequencies isnt very high. On the HF band, its about as sensitive as a cheap $20 shortwave analog radio with a short whip antenna. If you want to get it for scanner purposes or for anything regarding ham radio in the 144 or 440Mhz range, then this will do fine as long as you get the kit with the antennas in it. I cannot recommend this for shortwave or HF ham radio band listening. With that said, let me say this, for just $20 or so this would be a decent way to give someone a dip into the Software Designed Radio waters. To give them an idea of what is possible with an SDR, what it can pick up, and what it can do with the right software. For Linux users: I run Ubuntu 18.04LTS and this was pretty much plug and play for me. All I had to do was install CubicSDR from the Ubuntu Software Center, plug in the dongle, and it started receiving. I couldnt get GQRX to work with this dongle at all on the HF bands. It worked just fine with CubicSDR. But like I said above, this is about as sensitive on the HF bands as a cheap analog shortwave radio. Thus is why Im returning it. It was a nice experiment into the SDR realm and give me a taste of the possibilities. However, I think Ill stick with actual hardware receivers and use an audio connection for decoding. That Im already doing.

Wow. I had no idea... Where has SDR been all my life!? A friend suggested the RTL-SDR to me while talking about CB and Ham radio operation... Thank you Anthony! I am having a blast looking at everything available out there. Even something as simple as listening to FM stations is suddenly clearer (and more fun) than any other radio I have in the house! Currently using windows with SDR# - it is fairly stable but not perfect. setting up Debian vm for this soon.

OK, Im 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 theres 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, its 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. Im 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, thats 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 Im happy with my scotch tape/paperclip antenna. Im 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 didnt have that working while I was testing, lol!), a powered lo-noise filter. These add-ons can possibly be powered by following the RTL websites 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, Im 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 its 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 Im not sure if Ill need, but itll be fun. So, thats 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. Im 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 Ill 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) Ill 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 Im to believe, either way: super simple. Oh, THIS DONGLE ONLY RECEIVES...you cant 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 thats wise of legal or whatever, but this dongle is for listening only--which is fine. Hope this helps total newbies! Mike from Detroit.

Pretty Cool, Hook up a wire UHF, VHF HF, Fantastic! its that simple

Super reciever for all band

Here it is attached to my Raspberry Pi acting as an ADS-B station. The design of the CPU allows the device to hang in mid-air letting it stay cool running 24x7. According to the stats pages, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to.