Chinese and Russian Custom RTL-SDR Kits
There are now some custom RTL-SDR kits available from Chinese and Russian manufacturers. These kits are essentially the standard RTL-SDR laid out on a custom PCB with extra upconverter (or direct sampling) circuitry on board.
This is a 100 KHz to 1 GHz RTL-SDR kit (~$23 USD), and this is another 100 KHz to 1 GHz pre made custom RTL-SDR in a nice box (~$40 USD) (alternative Chinese seller). The Chinese sellers page shows some examples of the performance on Youku (Chinese YouTube)
Hello,
where can i buy this? The links are dead.
regards
Peter
Nevermind, Gerhard, I was writing of something else. A blond moment, senior moment, brain fart. My apologies.
I had the same problems with an upconverter, Gerhard. There are good videos by hamradioscience and superphish on YouTube that show installation and use of the particular one I bought with SDR# and HDSDR, but the videos are useful for other brands of upconverter as well. Is the oscillator correctly installed? Are your connections/pigtails good? Are your software settings correct? If all of your connections are good and you have the right settings in your software (you should also try playing with the Tuner AGC and gain levels) and you are still getting nothing then you probably have a dead upconverter just as I and a few other folks that have contacted me did. I have had to send it back for a replacement that I’m still waiting for. Hopefully you won’t have to go that far!
Hello
I have recently purchased such a kit with downconverter, but I feel helpless to play the lower AM frequencies on LW, MW, SW up to 30 Mhz. I think I am doing something wrong.
Using SDR- Radio, HDSDR and SDR#
Any ideas
G.
I think that it must be cleared that Chinese Sellers are selling at least 2 different Receivers: One Built and eady to receive and other one that you have to built to hear Radio (This one is Cheaper than the Built SDR)
I for one have to admit I spent far too long browsing all the off-brand ‘ham’ gear. Sketchy but tempting. Oh China, when will you ever run out of neat cheap gadgets for me to buy?
Russian version requires registration to order.
Skype me button does not work, as in no one picks up the phone.
Get on Ebay boys ’cause I’m sure will not share my PayPal or credit card details with an unheard-of online auction website.
RTL stick costs 10 usd, ham it up is 50, so for 20 extra dollars you got a proven and working solution.
Khmm, I still want one for testing 🙂
Nice… missing ESD-Diode on PCB…. :-/