some candid reviews recently posted

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jon
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Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 10:48 am

some candid reviews recently posted

Post by jon » Fri Mar 18, 2016 6:58 am

More reviews posted in the last couple of weeks on eHam reviews....

KK4QMH Rating: 5/5 Mar 13, 2016 16:41

Best SDR for the price Time owned: more than 12 months

A great SDR if you're looking to upgrade from the RTL dongles and keep your costs down. I'm using the RSP as a standalone receiver, as I don't have the upgraded digital board in my TS-930 that would add the com port to allow use as a pan adapter. On sensitivity and selectivity, the RSP is on par with, or in some instances, exceeds my Kenwood. Dynamic range is about the same. For skeptics who doubt it's dynamic range, there are videos on youtube that, through the use of a signal generator, display it's capabilities. I currently have it paired with a G5RV Jr, and while I don't normally venture above 30 MHz, I have used it with a ground plane vertical a couple of times and performance was great there, too. The only negative being images from strong signals on 800 mhz from law enforcement, but that can be handled with external filtering. Considering I don't do much on VHF/UHF, I'm not really affected. Also, overheating is not an issue, as the RSP stays cool and frequency remains steady, unlike my old RTL dongle that frequently heated up and drifted like crazy. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the RSP's lower end frequency coverage extends below it's advertised 100 kHz, and I'm able to hear a few of the interesting signals down that far, but my antenna is not optimal for that range.

I feel the negative feedback for the radio is unwarranted. Don't expect the RSP to blow away your Perseus, or other direct conversion SDRs. It's a 12bit ADC receiver for $150. It's $100 cheaper than the Afedri and $50 cheaper than the Airspy. Does it beat the Airspy? Yes. Hands down. Does it best the Afedri? No, that's a direct conversion radio, but the RSP has a larger frequency range and can sample more bandwidth. Also, the DC spike can be handled in HDSDR with the RX DC removal set to "Auto".

Bottom line is, for me, $100 makes a big difference. I'm on a tight budget and I don't feel like I'm sacrificing performance because I couldn't spend more. When finances allow, will I purchase something better? Yes, but I'm not forsaking my RSP completely. If you're looking to get into SDR, this is your radio. It's backed by great customer service, and an unofficial Facebook user group with 2,000 members that are fantastic and will bend over backwards to help you.

N4JRW Rating: 5/5 Feb 26, 2016 14:53

Neat radio Time owned: 0 to 3 months
Hello to all. I got the sdrplay about a week ago and try as will I did have some installation issues but since its on a windows computer I kinda was thinking that that was the part of the problem. I am good at reading and following directions but something wasn't adding up. I posted a support request on the sdrplay.com web and Steve Brightman of SDRPlay North
America answered my request the next day, he said to go over the installation and included screenshots of the the settings. Turned out that Steve got me headed into the right direction. Two parts of the install were in two sections of the program files, one was in program files and the other in program files (x86).
I had downloaded hdsdr and also SDR console as the front end of the radio. Immediately the radio was recognized and its pretty darn good. The first thing I tuned is to the broadcast fm band and I know of small powered npr station that plays jazz about 50 miles from my location and it deplayed the waveform and it was in stereo, so well I had to turn the input of my computer down so that it wouldnt overload the radio.
I can read air band and 800 mhz police transmissions
and just about everything in between including hf.
The sdrplay covers 100hz to 2 ghz, the software copies am fm wide and narrow and ssb, you can also port it to fldigi and the like with a vitural audio cable(vb audio). This is very nicely designed sdr
and there are mulitple support outlets including facebook and yahoo. And also how many times have a company rep also the head of the North American section replyed to problem. Thanks again Steve !
Its a real deal and its a reasonably priced super broadband receiver. The learning curve is steep but not unlearnable just get all the drivers in line and in one spot and you'll be impressed. Thanks 73
Steve N4JRW
Last edited by jon on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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