While the standard R820T dongles are the cheapest, most popular and best overall performing, there are other lesser known dongles variants out there which contain RTL2832 chips. Gough Lui has reviewed two lesser known dongles with Belling Lee (PAL) connectors on his blog.
One dongle uses the FC0013 tuner, and the other uses the R820T chip. Gough opens the dongles up and inspects their electronics and gives his opinions on the design.
Nobu Saito, a Japanese RTL-SDR hardware developer has come out with a modified RTL-SDR which has a +-2PPM 28.8MHz Temperature Controller Oscillator (TCXO) instead of the standard 28.8 MHz stock oscillator. (Note this link is machine translated to English from Japanese).
Normally 28.8 MHz TCXO’s are difficult to find, but Nobu was able to find a source in Japan, and he is now selling on his Amazon Store (with international shipping) modified dongles.
The oscillator on the RTL-SDR is prone to thermal drift, which means that as the dongle heats up from use, the frequency you are tuned to may change over time. A TCXO compensates for differences in temperature, and thus keeps the frequency stable as the temperature changes. This is extremely useful for applications such as receiving GPS, Beacons, APT, HFDL, and for radio astronomy.
Nobu sells the modified dongle with TCXO on this page. We expect to receive a sample of his product soon and will write a review when we receive it.
Edit: Now available at the 1090 MHz webstore.
Andy (KB1OIQ) has put together an Ubuntu Linux LiveDVD which has preinstalled RTL-SDR support, as well as a large number of amateur radio programs. The LiveDVD also supports both 32 and 64 bit machines.
A LiveDVD allows you to boot Linux directly from a DVD, rather than needing to install Linux onto your hard drive.
You can download the iso files directly from these links below
http://hivelocity.dl.sourceforge.net/project/kb1oiq-andysham/ubuntu-remix-14-32bit.iso
http://hivelocity.dl.sourceforge.net/project/kb1oiq-andysham/ubuntu-remix-14-64bit.iso
Pytacle, a Linux tool used for automating GSM sniffing has been updated to alpha2, and now supports the RTL-SDR dongle with this update.
According to the website pytacle is
a tool inspired by tentacle. It automates the task of sniffing GSM frames of the air, extracting the key exchange, feeding kraken with the key material and finally decode/decrypt the voice data. All You need is a USRP (or similar – [RTL-SDR]) to capture the GSM band and a kraken instance with the berlin tables (only about 2TB
)
If you’re new to the world of low cost software defined radio, and have just been through our Quickstart guide, this YouTube tutorial video by Clayton Smith on using the SDR# program may be useful to you.
In the video Clayton explains how to use SDR# and some of its many features, how to calibrate the RTL-SDR offset in the software, and he also shows how to receive a few interesting signals in his area.
AmateurRadio.com has teamed up with Nooelec.com to give away RTL-SDR packages to 10 hams. To be eligible to enter the competition, you must be a registered amateur radio operator, and you must comment on the competition page. The prizes are
Two (2)
Complete HF sets including:
NESDR Mini receiver
Ham It Up upconverter
SMA to MCX cable
SMA to BNC adapter
SMA to PL259 adapter
SMA to F adapterTwo (2)
Complete Touch SDR sets including:
NESDR Nano receiver
SDR Touch license (for Android tablets)
USB OTG micro & mini cablesThree (3)
NESDR Mini receiversThree (3)
NESDR Nano receivers
The competition runs until the 11th of December.
AirSpy is a new SDR Dongle currently being prototyped by the author of the popular SDRSharp software receiver platform. The technical specifications are as follows
– 24 – 1750 MHz range
– 12bit ADC @ 20msps
– Cortex M4F @ 204 MHz
– 10 MHz panoramic spectrum view
– Highly programmable / customizable
AirSpy also uses the R820T tuner, which is commonly used in the RTL-SDR as well.
Compared to the RTL-SDRs 8bit [email protected], this is a large improvement, but we hope it will not cost much more than the RTL-SDR or FunCube.
Currently, if you want more information on the dongle there is only an AirSpy Yahoo Group available.
A (beta version) of an ADS-B decoder and display app for the RTL-SDR dongle for Android has been released. This app allows you to receive the ADS-B radio signals emitted by modern aircraft, which contain information such as flight number, latitude, longitude and altitude, essentially giving you a live portable aircraft radar.
To use the app, you will need an Android device that supports USB OTG, which most Android devices on Android 4.0+ should support. You will also need a USB OTG cable, and an RTL-SDR dongle. You may want to consider a USB OTG cable that has a second port for external charging capabilities, as the RTL-SDR can drain the battery quickly.
The app is cheaply priced at under $2, so give it a try!
