1. posterid:391786
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Re: DX Patrol Mk 4 and HF with SDR-Radio

jdow
 

I believe I did say the performance at HF for the RTL dongles leaves something to be desired. It works with very limited dynamic range and depending on the mode used very poor sensitivity.

For a dongle like DX Patrol use a VERY poor antenna or put in attenuation until hooking up the antenna only slightly increases noise. Also put in a BCB high pass filter to cut off below 1.6 kHz. (Yes, that impedes use on 160 meters; but, as I say, the dongles leave something to be desired.)

At about twice the price of the DX Patrol you can get an AirSpy HF+ Discovery. It is MUCH nicer on HF and has some limited VHF capability.

{^_^}

On 20190702 08:42:48, EB4APL wrote:
Hi,
As far as I know, this receiver is a RTL TV dongle with an upconverter to cover HF. The limited dynamic range of the A/D converter can make funny things like the one that you are experiencing. Try adjusting the RF gain so you trade sensitivity versus saturation but you will see that the performance in HF is quite poor.
73 de Ignacio, EB4APL
El 02/07/2019 a las 17:28, Francesco Basta escribió:
Hallo Dale and jdow, thanks for the suggestions. I did not feel like putting my (clumsy) hands on other dll's, so I tried what Dale suggested. Unfortunately it did not work. I then contented myself to explore the HF with DX Patrol with HDSDR and indeed it works - but I found strong broadcasting signals on 21 MHz, in the 15 mtr. amateur band. This was already strange, but my heart sank when I tuned the same frequencies with my faithful Yaesu FT-897 and found nothing like that. It has to be some sort of artifact (on a conventional superhet I would think of image frequencies). I think I'll skip HF listening with the little gizmo for a while...

Best regards,
                                  Francesco - PE1F
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