Connecting your antenna

The RSP1A RSPdx and RSPduo all have one or more SMA female antenna sockets.  These sockets are designed to perform well over the entire frequency range whereas the other types of socket options provided on the RSPdx and RSPduo (BNC and wire terminal block respectively) are intended for use at frequencies  below 200MHz (BNC)  and 30MHz (wire terminal block)

The SMA socket therefore requires a standard SMA male plug (which has a centre pin).  We discourage the use of all-in-one adapters to larger sockets (like the SO239) since these will put a strain on the socket.  It is much better to use a length of coax to the next connector. 

The picture above shows the four most popular choices of antenna for covering the bulk of the spectrum offered by wideband SDR receivers like the SDRplay RSP family. The “long wire” (more correctly named as the “random wire” antenna) and the whip antennas are the lowest cost options but have some limitations which is why the more expensive active magnetic loop and discone options have become popular.  The key pros and cons are shown in the table below:

For dedicated reception of a narrow band of specific frequencies there’s a whole host of specialist options (e.g. ADSB antennas for 1090MHz, Inmarsat antennas for 1.6GHz, special 137MHz antennas for NOAA satellite reception and so on as well as the traditional yagi antennas with directional properties.   

However for now, just looking at the most common choices, here are links to wiki pages each of the popular antennas types mentioned above:

The long wire antenna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_wire_antenna

The active magnetic loop antenna (need a better link) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_antenna 

VHF/UHF whip antenna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip_antenna 

Discone antenna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discone_antenna

We now go on to recommend some specific makes of antennas which we here at SDRplay have checked out and are confident to recommend…….