New owner (mixed feelings)

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w5zib
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:10 pm

New owner (mixed feelings)

Post by w5zib » Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:20 pm

Hello everyone, Im a proud new owner of an SDRPlay and have been putting it through the paces the past few days. Ive owned a number of sdr's in the past so Im pretty familiar with how things work. Im familiar with SDR-Console so Ive been using it most, I haven't been able to get things working with HDSDR as it doesn't recognize the sdr-play (as SDR-Console does). I have downloaded SDR# but haven't tried to use it yet. Im experiencing a lot of overload with my unit, even when reducing the gain to 0. MW band performance is terrible, I can't reduce the overload without totally silencing the band, Im having the same issue up to 6 Mhz. On the bright side, 40 and 20 meters seem to work pretty well but I bought this to monitor SW and MW broadcast bands mostly. Ive owned an Afedri, Flex1500 and a couple Apache Labs radios, all worked fine with my 40m loop antenna that Im using now. I'd appreciate any feedback anyone could provide. Ive read countless good reviews of this radio and hope I can taylor mine to work well too. 73

Chris
W5ZIB
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NN4F
Posts: 128
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:54 pm
Location: Ridgeville, SC
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Re: New owner (mixed feelings)

Post by NN4F » Wed Feb 03, 2016 1:49 am

Gain at 0 is MAX wide open, you need to go the other way -60 to -80 for HF on a good antenna.....

Paul - NN4F
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--
Paul Jones - NN4F, Charleston SC
http://www.facebook.com/groups/SDRPlay

w5zib
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:10 pm

Re: New owner (mixed feelings)

Post by w5zib » Wed Feb 03, 2016 1:52 am

Im making some head way with it now, a ferrite on the usb cord helped a lot, and by tweaking the agc settings in SDR-Console, MW is definitely improving. I still have to employ maximum gain reduction (-80db) to prevent overloading. This thing may grow on me after all :)

Chris
W5ZIB
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sdrplay
Posts: 978
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2015 7:58 am

Re: New owner (mixed feelings)

Post by sdrplay » Wed Feb 03, 2016 3:24 am

For HDSDR you will need the EXTIO plugin which you can download from our website (http://www.sdrplay.com/windows.html)

Best regards,

SDRplay
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w5zib
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:10 pm

Re: New owner (mixed feelings)

Post by w5zib » Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:57 am

Thanks for all the advice, it really was a matter of setting things up properly. The SdrPlay seems to rival or exceed my R8 in performance now. Simon's enhancements to SDR-Console have improved things even more, with the LNA "off" signals really jump out. Im one happy camper now! Thanks for the info on the EXTIO for HDSDR, I will download that also. I always felt HDSDR was less noisy than SDR-Console when I owned my AFEDRI-sdr, it'll be fun to experiment with the SdrPlay. I still haven't tried this thing on VHF/UHF, I plan to try that too. 73

Chris
W5ZIB
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