Love the RSP1A and SDRuno

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Ruben_NB4R
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:52 pm

Love the RSP1A and SDRuno

Post by Ruben_NB4R » Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:37 pm

Almost two weeks ago my new toy is delivered. An RSP1A. I purchased this along with an MFJ-108B-SDR. I wired it up, loaded the SDRuno software and opened it up. WOW! I was receiving AM/FM and the Amateur bands immediately. I can't say the software is very intuitive, but I can say it's not that daunting of a task to read up and learn. I had more of a learning curve with the hardware connections than SDRuno. After I had the connections corrected I was able to get on the ham bands and start having QSO's.

I'm going to make an assumption here and say that there has been little experience, among the group, with the MFJ-1708B-SDR
switch that is needed to interconnect my Yaesu FT1000-mp and the RSP1a. I did get good help from you guys pointing out the obvious to me. I will go through my setup and connection scheme the facilitate smooth hardware operation. I also made an EBay purchase of a black aluminium project box that I relocated the RSP1A radio and connections. This is an attractive matte finished black box. It has a very durable and attractive addition. After moving the RSP1A to the box I noticed a very noticable drop in the noise floor. I was so quiet, that at first, I thought there was a problem with the radio. The SDR was running just fine. I didn't opt for the other box and accessories that I saw on EBay because for my use, I did't really didn't need the accessories that came with it. That is a very nice box that already has the needed holes drilled and cut and also has very well done painted labels. If you would like to take a look at my purchase, it is located here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-Split-bo ... 2749.l2649 . It's price is $11.21 with free shipping.

I have it setup and connected in this fashion. I have coax from the "Ant A" connection on the rear of the transceiver to the "XCVR" connection on the MFJ-1708. Next, I run coax from the the "ANT" connection on the MFJ-1708 to the transceiver input on the Ameritron AL80-b amplifier. Then I ran coax from the "SDR REC" on the MFJ-1708 to the signal input of the SDRPlay RSP1a. For the switching signal I ran a cable from the "TX GRD" on back of the 1000mp to the "CTRL" connection on the MFJ-1708. This switches the MFJ-1708 into transmit mode when the radio is keyed to transmit. This grounds out the RSP1a's input to ground to prevent the receiver from being overloaded by the RF signal output from the Radio. Lastly, I ran a cable from the "AUX" connector to the "RLY" input on the back of the AL-80b. This provides the needed signal to ground required for the amplifier for it to be keyed upon transmit from the tranceiver.

When the transceiver is keyed to transmit the mute function in the SDRuno software works beautifully in providing the 60 db signal attenuation to the RSP1a that provides added protection to the SDR receiver from overload.

I still have a lot to learn about the SDRuno software and all the different functions available for effective signal processing.
So far, my expectations have been greatly exceeded. I look forward to may hours of enjoyable fun with this great product.
I hope this helps someone that may need it and hopefully it's not too confusing. Thank you gain for your great help and have a great day!

73
Ruben
NB4R

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