How to connect a nevada EFW-1 to sdr play

[M6UCE]

Hi

I am completely ignorant and have just ordered this

http://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/amateur-ra ... da-efw-1--

to go with an sdrplay rsp2 which has not arrived yet either. I believe the antenna has some form of un balun thingy and terminates in 8meters of coax.

My question is should I simply buy an adapter to connect the Ntype female to the sma port or am I better off removing the n type connection and sticking it into the green high impedance thingy on the sdrplay

sorry for the use of the word thingy but I dont have the terms down yet

thanks
Steve

[dave524]

Looks like a male PL 259 on the receiver end, not a N connector, yes, just get the adapter.

[franko]

For the HF spectrum, I've had far better results attaching a somewhat similar end-fed wire antenna to the SDRplay's Hi Z port (the green high-impedance thingie) rather than to either of the other two antenna ports.

As dave524 notes, the photos for the antenna you ordered appear to indicate that the coax terminates in a PL-259 plug. This will plug into an SO-239 socket. For my setup, I just obtained a loose SO-239 socket and soldered on wires to attach it to the SDRplay:

https://ibb.co/jxwa3a

The black wire that disappears out the top of the picture goes to a ground connection.

[vk7jj]

Hi Franko, I seem to be chasing you around (I'm not, I promise, just passionate about antennas feedlines and noise)..

The HF connector on the RSP2 is specially designed as a balanced input which is a great thing and one of the major improvements over the RSP1.

That's mentioned in this PDF, which you may have seen, along with suggestions about connecting to it either directly via coax using the two balanced terminals with one bridged to the ground terminal, or using a Nooelec balun.

http://www.sdrplay.com/wp-content/uploa ... uidev2.pdf

Also, I would never use any independent ground, as per your black wire, that's begging for noise and other problems. It's much better to isolate your SPR from ground and feed the left hand pair of connectors via a balanced line as per the Nooelec photo.

This topic touches on why and how to achieve that, as per n1kgy's comment in that thread.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1687

You might not notice or care about what might appear to be minor noise differences now, but as you improve every link in the antenna-feedline chain (and you've barely started I can assure you) your noise figure will get better and better, it is worth it, and it is good fun too.

[franko]

Vk7jj, thanks very much for the links and information. As you point out, I'm barely scratching the surface in learning. I'll try those configurations and see what kind of results they produce.