Monday, May 07, 2012

Listening to air band on RTL-SDR

A $30 DVB-T USB stick just arrived from China and coupled with HDSDR and helpful instructions I'm starting to tune around and hear signals. The first thing I tried was 123MHz AM, air band.



Still lots to learn but this is an encouraging start. These dongles can tune over a wide range, some from 64MHz to 1.7GHz.

Here's a stronger FM signal.



Which DVT-T Stick?

The one I bought was advertised as being compatible. It's hard to figure out from the generic names which is which. This one is simply called "DVB-T STICK" on the packaging. Here is the seller's ad:


There is a list of compatible devices and an active discussion in a subreddit.

4 comments:

William VK3ADB said...

Hi Peter,

What is the model of DVB-T USB stick you're using in the videos?

Anonymous said...

Do those congles run hot?, I have a longer dongle with 2 switchings regs that runs cool. I have seen some reports that the dongles get very hot and was wondering if it was simply the power supplies.

Peter Marks said...

I didn't notice any particular warmth from the dongle but I wasn't looking for it.

Terry VK5TM said...

Not sure if you are aware, but you can construct a simple converter for these to get down into the HF bands.