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Reviews For: Realtek RTL2832U DVB-T tuner

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Realtek RTL2832U DVB-T tuner
Reviews: 16MSRP: 27
Description:
SDR 64–1,700 MHz (sensitivity drops off considerably outside this range, but can go 0–2,100 MHz).
Similar to the Funcube.
Sampling rate: 1 MHz (can go up to 3 MHz but drops samples).
Works with Windows, Linux, and other OS.
Product is in production
More Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software-defined_radios
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00164
N4AEQ Rating: 2013-09-21
Great deal Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
In this day and time it is hard to find a deal in amateur radio equipment, but this is one exception. I bought 2 of these for 20 bucks and
even though I don't know much about PC programs I
got in up and running on SRD sharp in 3o minutes.
Great SRD, mine is RTL2832u/820 and receives 24 to 1750mhz, has worked great for me at 12 meters to 33cm. I did buy the HF upverter from Janielectronics for $50 and it also works ok, but it's not as impressive as the RTL dongle.
VE3TMT Rating: 2013-06-14
Can't beat the price! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have two of these little units, one I purchased from China and one from NOO Electronics (only because I couldn't wait for the first one to arrive!)

I use them for many different purposes in the shack. The main reason I wanted one was to use as a panadapter for my Yaesu FT990. I was using a Softrock Lite II kit prior to the Realtek, and although it worked, I could only sample the 455 KHz IF which provided very little bandwidth on the display.

So I tapped the 47.21 MHz IF in the FT990 (RF board, little trace between T1005 and T1010) and set up the RTL tuner with HDSDR. The results are simply amazing. With my Creative Labs X-FI card I can easily see 2 MHz of the band at 96 KHz sampling. I can dial in any audio bandwidth I want, to hear the DX or listen to the ESSB guys. The performance rivals my old TS870S. It has turned the FT990 into a whole new radio. The radio is interfaced with Omni-Rig, so I see a signal on the band, I click on it and the radio is there. Or you can set up HDSDR so only the screen frequencies change, and your radio stays put on one frequency, like having a dual receiver. It's great for working split DX stations.

In addition to HDSDR, I use SDR# (SDR Sharp) for VHF and UHF receiving. I just installed the latest version, with the scanner plug-in, so it's like having a 24 MHz to 1.7 GHz receiver with no gaps. I also use ADS-B# and ADS-B Scope for monitoring planes overhead, all which work well with this tuner. For $20 plus shipping ($9 from China) these are great little devices. They may not rival the real SDR boxes out there, but for the price, they are fantastic.

You can see pics on the panadapter on my QRZ.com page.

73,
2E1RDX Rating: 2013-05-11
under £40 for a superb SDR Receiver Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Well where to start I bought a RTL2832U+R820T Dongle off ebay £6.50 I then purchased a Ham It Up v1.0 - RF Upconverter to give me full HF £31.95 so I now have HF, VHF, UHF, SDR Receiver I have it running with HDSDR Software which works superb,
It works as good as my previous SDR receivers SDR-IQ, Perseus SDR, PM-SDR, and has far more coverage in both Panadaptor and frequency coverage,
I have it connected to my TS-590 via Omni Rig and have a Elad Switchbox on order which will then give me and fantastic setup for next to nothing ??? very happy
Ian
WB0FDJ Rating: 2013-03-13
Interest gadget Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought mine from Nooelec for a little over $20. Wanted to run it on my mac (thinking..uh oh...) but found gqrx software, downloaded it and had it receiving FM stereo in about 5 minutes. As I write this am listening to my local fire department run a medical call, have used it on aircraft freqs and for NOAA weather. Great for experimenting. Have also just got an HF upconverter. A great, inexpensive way to explore the world of SDR receivers for the cost of a good meal. Glad I got it and will be fiddling with it a lot. Fun.
WV4I Rating: 2013-02-19
Cheap and Easy SDR Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Per the Jan 2013 QST article re Cheap and Easy SDR, I decided to give one of these DVB-T units a try. Mine was about $25 plus ship off Ebay, and contains the RTL2832 quadrature sampling decoder, and the E4000 tuner. I'm using SDR# set up per the article, except that I found the SDR# Config file entry for RTL-SDR/USB already active. Only other gotcha is be careful using Zadig when installing USB driver, or you'll be reinstalling printers, other USB devices.

Anyway, while the noise floor is around -70dbm eg on 2M using a yagi, for the money, this is a cheap and valuable introduction to SDR, SDR# is a free download.

My version of SDR# does allow gain adjustment or let it be handled auto by AGC. I found +10db manual gain to be about right for my setup.

I also operate a Softrock Receive Ensemble II and SDR-IQ, albeit both on HF, and with noise floors on the order of -120dbm or better. However, the described DVB-T will get you on approx 64mhz-1700mhz, at little up front cost. Also comparing a NF or floor on HF vs VHF/UHF is not really apples for apples. A good antenna is a must, and the supplied antenna is not. The antenna connector on my DVB-T is a PAL, so series adapter required to F or UHF.

The QST article went on to describe an HF upconverter that could be used with the DVB-T, but by time you build and pay for that, could build and pay for one of the other SDR kits designed for HF, get far better performance.
KG4RUL Rating: 2013-02-19
Works Well Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have one of these units that I am using with SDR# software and a NooElectronics, HF upconverter. All the parameters of the unit are settable, including RF gain, with the SDR# package. An inexpensive way to get into SDR radio.