SDRplay Community Forum

From a low starting point, I wold like to understand a few things, but starting with just one - When tuned to any particular area of the RF spectrum using the RSP, I often observe what appear to be sporadic/intermittent apparent surges in signal strength.
Increasing attenuation to it's maximum usually stops these surges, however, occasionally the opposite seems to apply and decreasing attenuation to minimum may also work.
Question #1: Is my assumption of cause correct?
Question #2: Is the phenomenin normal and if so, why would opposite amounts of attenuation have the same effect?
Question #3: Since I find that it is sometimes desirable to use the minimum amount of attenuation to listen to a particular signal and these surges are present, is it harmful to the RSP?
Thanks in advance for any offerings...

Although I can't really answer your question, I suspect some of these 'odd effects' that people see are down to perception. Bursts of noise, a strong signal appearing or disappearing etc will affect the AGC and cause the visible spectrum to jump up & down.
In Ye Olde Days, we did not have any way of seeing the spectrum, all we saw was one frequency and we weren't sat staring at the S-meter. But now it's all laid out in front of us and we notice every glitch. So I reckon it's always been happening, but we never used to see it. Now we can!