rtl-sdr.com

Thanks, until Ben asked I'd not thought of trying these little puck antennas for seeing satellites.
All my RTLs are old ones with an external bias T and so far I've not managed to use one successfully. The Funcube dongle and Pluto shows them, I've not tried any decoding software yet.
Alan

As suggested it's a USB fault.
Try a different socket or even a powered hub.
Alan

I found not all GPS antennas pickup Iridium. A good one, far better SNR shown an a GPS program, did not pickup Iridium. It was far better for GPS satellites but must have had a good filter preventing out of band signal reception. I also tried 3 RTLs and did not manage to receive anything. I guess th...

Is this Iridium?
FCD and ordinary GPS antenna no plate.

A plate is likely to improve reception particularly as it is specified as part of the antenna system.
It's dimensions are not likely to be too critical, just as big as possible. A car roof or anything like that?
Alan

A quick search shows this to be a SDR Play "clone" except it is not a true clone, does not work anything like as well. Look at the true SDR Play, check as many reviews as you can, they seem to be well respected but not so cheap. Also wide bandwidth done well is expensive, I do not know if the MAC re...

Susan,
Your links reinforce my respect for the little chip that all modern GPS modules use! Receiver, counter, calculator doing things I can scarcely imagine let alone understand.
I'd have even more respect for someone who could reproduce what it does!
Alan

Dan, Why not a small MW portable with a ferrite rod incorporated? Or a wire could be coupled to the rod if signals were weak by making a few turns round it. Possibly just round the radio? I'd think anything other than a wire antenna would be impractical when hiking. A RTL v3 should work with a wire,...

And if you look at the spread spectrum frequency range covered by the satellites (I guess you have not!) the RTL is completely useless.

I cannot imagine any way that it would help in any sort of conversion.
It might help if you designed a completely new system using a RTL as receiver and other chips for processing.
To me it seems a very difficult project especially when it can be done by a cheap Ebay module.
Alan