Big antennas a RSP2

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Radiodan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2018 2:44 pm

Big antennas a RSP2

Post by Radiodan » Mon Oct 01, 2018 3:05 pm

Hi,
I am a new user of SDRPLAY SDR's, I bought an RSP2 last week and have installed HDSDR after reading how many users liked it.
I am still getting familiar with how this all works and the settings, etc.
I have found that two of my antennas present way too much signal to the front end of the RSP2. Two of my antennas works fine.
I have at least two antennas for each HF/6M band
My main HF antennas are:
3 element SteppIR Yagi for 20-6M - works great
Homebrew full quarter wave vertical for 40/30/20M (separate 1/4 wave elements for each band, elevated feedpoint and 8 radials - works great
Homebrew inverted L for 160/80M with 65 feet vertical, 100 feet horizontal sloping over a bed of 55 radials 90 feet long each - way too much signal
Homebrew Big loop 1100 feet long in a square up 65 feet, held up with four 70 foot utility poles spaced 280 feet apart, fed with open wire and ladder line to a true balanced tuner (Palstar BT-1500A) - way too much signal.
When I connect either the loop or inverted L to the RSP2, it is overwhelmed and cannot receive any signals, even with adjusting the LNA gain as low as possible.
I added two 6 dB inline attenuators (total 12 dB attenuation) to the antenna jack of the RSP2 and now all the antennas play nice with the RSP2.
On the lower bands (30M and lower) the noise floor is much higher than the higher HF bands so attenuation in the front is a welcome addition. If my added 12 dB attenuation changes the receiver from a -135 dBm sensitivity to -123 dBm when the noise floor is -100 dBm, there is no effective loss of weak signals.
Enjoying as I explore!
73, Dan W7RF
Last edited by Radiodan on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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Radiodan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2018 2:44 pm

Re: Big antennas a RSP2

Post by Radiodan » Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:54 pm

I just bought an RSP1A and it was delivered today 10-9-18. I tried it instead of the RSP2 that I bought last week. In the reviews I read, the RSP1A had slightly better strong signal handling capability.
I can confirm this on both antennas that collected too much signal for the RSP2. I had to use TWO 6 dB attenuators on the RSP2 with my largest two antennas (see post that this reply is for). Now with the RSP1A I can use only ONE 6 dB attenuator and it does not overload. It is slightly more sensitive with only one 6 db pad but since my interest (with the low sunspot activity) is the lower HF Ham bands, it does not make much difference by having one or two 6 dB pads in the antenna input line with band noise far exceeding the MDS of these receivers.

So, with just a short time of owning the RSP1A, it does seem to mirror the reviews I have read that show it as having better strong signal handling compared to the RSP2
OK, there is my update.
73, Dan W7RF
Last edited by Radiodan on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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