Airspy Mini Christmas Sale – $80 USD

The Airspy Mini is a software defined radio with a tuning range of 24 MHz to 1800 MHz, 12-bit ADC and up to 6 MHz of bandwidth. It usually costs $99 USD and is the younger brother of the $149 USD Airspy R2.

Currently the manufacturer iTead is running a Christmas sale on the Airspy Mini. The sale price is $80 USD, which is a 19% saving. To get the sale price you need to click on the “Get coupon code here” link and then share the promotion to your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account.

Update: They have given us a special blog coupon code “AS-RTLSDR-BLOG“. Just use this code at the checkout and it will apply the discount without the need to share. Edit: The blog coupon appears to have stopped working, an alternative one that is still working is “as3“.

The sale lasts from December 20, 2016 – January 3, 2017.

If you want to see more about the Airspy Mini then see our review here. Our other previous review comparing the Airspy R2 against the SDRplay RSP and HackRF may also be of interest as the Mini’s performance is very similar to the R2.

The Airspy Mini iTead Christmas Sale
The Airspy Mini iTead Christmas Sale
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KD0CQ

Airspy.us has them for $80 with no coupon code needed. Ordered one yesterday.

anony_moose

80 bucks for this dongle? what does this 80 dollar airspy dongle have that your rtl-sdr v3 dongle dont have to make it worth 80 bucks

Vince

Depends on what you’re wanting to accomplish with 12 bits instead of 8. Most people will have plenty to do with the V3 or original models. I just bought the Mini, it’s my 2nd one, maybe I’ll buy one each year they go on sale

AD5NL

The selling point here is the 12 bit ADC, wider bandwidth and linearity/dynamic range.

Although I have no idea whether the *difference* is as dramatic, it’s basically the same logic behind “CDs are better sounding than 8-tracks.”

Of course, a lot of the benefit is dependent on what is actually on the spectrum and what you’re listening to. My understanding is that the main beneficiary is probably urbanites listening to “scanner” type applications (hams, weather satellites, police band, etc.). So the purported benefit is very much application specific and location-dependent.

(Sort of the same way that dynamic range, linearity, and bandwidth matters more/less for audiophiles depending upon whether they are listening to loud shred metal rock, or listening to quiet classical jazz… for some types of music, it will sound equally awful on cassette or MP3 or CD… whereas others will sound vastly different).

For me, $80 is worth paying. Curious to see if I can milk a few more dB out of the SNR on VHF propagation beacons and weather satellites.

(Also curious to see if PGA-103+ (which AirSpy team urged in another thread) is really any better than Adam’s LNA4ALL in the real world — I’d bet Adam is probably right, btw).

AD5NL

Also just to be clear I am not saying AirSpy should/would sound better… I am sort of indirectly comparing RF with AF… but its an abstract comparison with regard to signal quality.

prog

In practice, you can expect this difference: https://twitter.com/MitReffahcs/status/808041316315754496

wobalusa

The site accepts AS3 in the cart, but it doesn’t give an actual discount… frustrating

Trim

It looks like they changed the coupon code in their website to “as3”.

wobalusa

Coupon code isn’t working for me either

mno0b

AS-RTLSDR-BLOG coupon does not work