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Reviews For: 100KHz-1.7GHz Full Band UV HF RTL-SDR USB Tuner Receiver/ R820T+

Category: Antenna parts, accessories, incl. baluns, hardware, etc.

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Review Summary For : 100KHz-1.7GHz Full Band UV HF RTL-SDR USB Tuner Receiver/ R820T+
Reviews: 6MSRP: 66.99
Description:
Listening to unencrypted Police/Ambulance/Fire/EMS conversations.
Listening to aircraft traffic control conversations.
Tracking aircraft positions like a radar with ADS-B decoding.
Decoding aircraft ACARS short messages.
Scanning trunking radio conversations.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.radioddity.com/us/100khz-1-7ghz-full-band-uv-hf-rtl-sdr-usb-tuner-receiver-r820t-8232-ham-radio.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0063.3
KC7BYP Rating: 2020-04-18
It Just arrived Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just got it in the mail on Monday April 13th. It came with the small VHF/UHF antenna and the USB cable. But NO instructions of any kind and NO driver cd or a link as to where to download the drivers. Now I have experience with SDR dongles. I have a Terratec dongle. The bottom end I think is about 30mhz and the top end is about 1.2ghz. I have had that working for a long time and it works very well. I have also owned an Klecraft k3. That was a very nice radio. I can get this receiver going if I can find the drivers to download. I also hope this isn't one of those with a over heat problem.
A PS. The Klecraft k3 I built new from a kit. But that was long ago before I started getting micro tremors in my hands.
Update. Now I know why I can't get the HF side working. The HF side works as good as 2 tin cans on a string. I just read the article in the following link https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-direct-sampling-mode/ The darn thing is hard wired for FM mod ONLY. And with my shakey hands I will burn the chip out. I had to use a lighted magnifying glass just to look at it. I am up a creek without a paddle.

Steve
KG5QHX Rating: 2017-01-19
Does not work well Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Although I am able to get mine to work, it is temperature sensitive. It works for about one minute before it quits working. You click on the play icon button and it runs scanning the band, but it starts to get hot then. Once it reaches a certain temperature it quits working until it cools off again. I have to unplug it and let it cool off for a while. Then I plug it back in and it works until it gets hot again. So that ends my experiment with a cheap dongle SDR radio.

I did find that if you follow the quick start instructions, that Windows 10 will replace the special USB driver with the Windows 10 driver automatically on you. But it does work with the Windows driver though, so going through the steps to replace the USB driver for it aren't needed in my case.

I do have a nice SDRPlay RSP2 unit and it works as advertised with no problems.
K5ACL Rating: 2015-11-16
First RTL SDR for a newbie Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this little kit on ebay for about $43. If you shop around a bit, you can find it for even cheaper. The antenna and cord that comes with the kit is pretty much useless, just throw it away immediately! It's not even coax, it's microphone cord. It took me awhile to figure this thing out (a few days lol), there are no instructions that come with it, although there are some very friendly folks over on reddit who helped me get it set up. If you need help, just shoot me a message and i'll be glad to save you the headache! This is a good way to get your feet wet without spending too much money, but if your like me you'll quickly discover than having the ability to monitor even a larger bandwidth is really cool! Construction of the rtl.sdr box is very solid. rugged aluminum box, it came with a usb cable, which you can use, but recommend adding ferrite chokes (at least 2 of them) on the cable. I have only used it with HDSDR thus far, and it worked decent. I was using an older laptop as well (old Centrino 2 processor).

This would be a great stocking stuffer for a ham!
KW4JA Rating: 2015-10-20
once you figure it out Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this on ebay from the Chinese for about $40. I had HDSDR and extio driver but it took awhile to figure out there is a secret sauce extio called extio-rtl. Once I downloaded that the device worked in vhf/uhf but not hf. It took a few more days and playing with it to figure it out. It requires pressing the extio button in HDSDR. Then you change the sampling drop down box to Direct Q. Otherwise it will not work on hf whatsoever.

Once it's working properly it works fine even with an xp computer. It does ham signals and aero in usb mode. It does am and sw admirably. It works about as well as the old SDR-IQ. Not bad for $40. I wrote this review so if you have three left feet using computers you can avoid all the problems I had. The guys in the forums won't have any patience with you. Only one guy assisted me but he couldn't figure it out. Good luck.
KE0VH Rating: 2015-10-19
Very cool box Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just had it delivered today. Only about a week from Amazon. Really cool little box, works with SDR Sharp, ADSB Sharp, and HDSDR. Will write more after I have played with it more. By the SMA male to SO239 female connectors for ham stuff. Gonna experiment with it a lot and write more later. Nice buy for monitoring.
BG6NIC Rating: 2015-03-31
Neat product Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
There is no instruction on it, and you have download and figure out how to make it work. I think it is only a DIY device. All in all, you need to order sma to whatever coax adapters you need to get to an outside antenna. I used sma to so239 adapters. With an outside antenna it picks up signals surprisingly well. The antenna that ships with it is useless unless you are just interested in vhf/uhf etc local transmissions. I have listened to vhf, uhf and hf with no problems with my outside wire antennas. At present, I have only made it work with SDR# and HDSDR software. I think this is because it used direct Q sampling instead of an up-converter (you have to choose Q sampling in software to receive HF signals). If you are looking for a "all in one" SDR receiver to play with, give it at try. It works, and receives good enough that it is on par with some of my Amateur radio equipment.