Hi guys,
I bought the RSP-1 several months ago, primarily to use as test
equipment. I haven't really put it through its paces in a serious way,
but it is clearly worth the $130 I paid for it from HRO.
Overload is easily solved by inserting a simple pad (resistive voltage
divider) at the input. As a genuine old fart, I have at least one
excellent commercial product that is switchable in steps, as well as a
box full of fixed value attenuators.
FWIW, I don't think that shielding has anything to do with degrading
performance unless internal circuit layout is poor. The most common
causes of poor rejection of interfering signals is poor circuit layout
and the "Pin One Problem" (failure to properly terminate the cable shield).
The "10 MHz" reference is to the maximum span width that can be
displayed, and it's 9 MHz without images. The primary value of this is
when chasing RFI -- it means that it could be used to study RFI from 1.8
- 10.8 MHz (or 3.5 - 12.5 MHz) with a single setup.
SDR receivers like this can also be used for the occupied spectrum
measurements I've been doing on modern radios. My prior work has been
with an Elecraft P3, looking at the 8.8 MHz IF of a K3S as a front end.
That unit has excellent frequency resolution (as narrow as a few Hz when
using the SVGA board), but the dynamic range is only 100 dB, and only
80d dB can be displayed on screen.
A comparison of low cost SDR receivers for use in chasing RF noise can
be seen on a series of slides beginning with #31 in this set used for a
talk I gave at Pacificon in October.
http://k9yc.com/KillingRXNoisePPT.pdf
Another option is the FunCube Dongle Pro. I bought one and started
playing with it a day or so before giving the talk.
With all of these products, what you can do with them depends VERY
strongly on what software you use on your computer to control them.
There are a half dozen or so of these programs, each of which has its
strengths and weaknesses for any given use. All I've seen are freeware.
Simon Brown is the author of one package, currently in its second or
third generation. His work is uniformly very good.
This survey is also quite useful.
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/roundup-software-defined-radios/
The first of these radios that I bought for use as a spectrum analyzer
is the ANAN 10e. I have no interest in using it as a ham rig -- I'm
quite happy with my K3s. :) Last I heard, N1EU is a happy ANAN user.
73, Jim K9YC
On Fri,12/16/2016 8:27 AM, Mike Pagel wrote:
The SDRPlay RSP2 was introduced recently and includes several upgrades
over the original version, including a layer of RF shielding inside
the case. A data sheet is online at
http://www.sdrplay.com/docs/RSP2_Datasheet.pdf . As I understand it
the price for the new model is at $169 and the original unit (RSP1)
has dropped to $129
I've been thinking about getting one of these to serve as a panadapter
for the Orion but am also concerned about overload problems when used
with conventional antennas. Is overloading a real concern? If so,
how is it solved?
73, de Mike, K9UW
------ Original Message ------
From: "Martin Sole" <hs0zed@gmail.com>
To: tentec@contesting.com
Sent: 12/16/2016 8:12:59 AM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] OT: SDRplay ???
I have one and like it a lot, great tool for noise hunting as well.
There are options to turn the gain down which helps in some overload
situations. If you want to see the full 10Mhz bandwidth at once you
will need USB3, USB2 will be awful choppy at more than about 2MHz. I
have seen a website/YTV(youtube video) where someone rebuilt one into
a metal enclosure for better immunity. Also saw lining the case with
copper foil done. Nothing is perfect but at the price point it's a
lot of radio for little money and with its other tool like
functionality it's more than just a radio.
Martin, HS0ZED
On 16/12/2016 13:26, rick@dj0ip.de wrote:
Tnx Barry,
I was reading eham reports (which I don't value very high) but there
seemed
to be a lot of complaints about overloading on large antennas. Mine
will be
on an all band dipole so it picks up plenty of signal from lots of
bands.
I can use a preselector with it, I have a couple.
One thing I read that makes sense though I don't know if it is true,
was one
should never place a direct conversion RX in a plastic enclosure.
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
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