Big antennas a RSP2
Posted: 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
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