Nooelec NESDR Mini USB RTL-SDR & ADS-B Receiver Set, RTL2832U & R820T Tuner, MCX Input. Low-Cost Software Defined Radio Compatible with Many SDR Software Packages. R820T Tuner & ESD-Safe Antenna Input

I've never been all that interested in radio, or spending any money on it, but when I saw a video describing these $20 RealTek chipset based dongles and how they could be used for SDR and radio spectrograph type applications, I was like "For $20? Count me in!" Like most people I'm using SDR# and not any of the vendor's drivers. The thing that took me a little while to figure out was that the USB drivers for this thing have to be installed manually. (There's absolutely no "plug and play" support for this thing at all, because the driver used by SDR# is a very generic low-level USB driver that is only designed to allow applications to essentially talk directly to just about any USB device supporting some serial protocol.) The easiest way to get this working is to download sdr-install.zip from the SDR# web site, extract it, and run the install script that will download everything you need including zadig (the generic USB driver installer), the RTL chipset plugin for SDR#, and SDR# itself. Before running SDR# you need to run zadig.exe and use it to install the driver. This requires that you select "show all devices" from the Options menu, select your RTL dongle from the pop-up menu, and tell it to install/reinstall the WinUSB driver for that device. Be careful to select your RTL dongle before hitting install or you may accidentally install this over your mouse driver or some other device. (Like I say, this is a generic driver that installs a really basic software interface for any USB device that supports certain attributes, so there's nothing to stop you from overwriting one of the other drivers on your system if you select the wrong device.) Once the WinUSB driver is installed you can just run SDR#, select the RTL device as the input, and hit play. Tip: I'd recommend turning on the auto gain check box for the tuner ("Tuner AGC") in the configuration panel though, unless you want to mess with the manual RF Gain control. (I was able to do pretty well just using the auto gain, but before I enabled the auto gain every signal I was getting was very weak. So you really need some sort of gain adjustment be it manual or auto.) Without much effort and using only the little included antenna I was able to pick up NOAA weather radio (narrowband FM), a number of commercial FM radio stations (wideband FM), the wideband FM transmission from a Sennheiser RS110 926MHz analog wireless headphone transmitter, and see a bunch of other signals on the spectrograph that I didn't recognize. I was also able to pick up 2 or 3 ADS-B transmissions from commercial airplanes, even though I was sitting in my basement and using only the included antenna, though all of these airplanes were within the line of sight angle provided by the window in the room I was in. So this tuner seems to be good for ADS-B, but obviously you're going to need an unobstructed outdoor antenna of some sort to receive signals from all directions. The remote control that comes with the dongle seems to be totally useless since it appears to be an IR device and I don't see how a computer can even receive a signal from it without a separate IR receiver device. (The NooElec dongle doesn't appear to have an IR receiver on it, but I could be wrong.) In any case it would require either the vendor's DTV software or some other software to make any use of it, and I don't know of anyone who's written anything useful that it can be used with. At some point I'll probably buy a MCX to some sort of coax adapter and wire up a proper antenna for it outside, but for now I'm just messing with the cheapo little included antenna. It seems to work better than I expected. Anyway, this is the most interesting $20 gadget that I've bought in a long time. I suspect that one day it will come in handy for helping to locate and rectify sources of radio interference.

Cool device. Was easy to install and use. The antenna included works if your in a big area with no buildings or obstructions, if you are you'll see the signal is clear. It's compatible with adding different antennas depending on where you are and what you're trying to listen to. Would I buy it again? Yes I'm buying another one to listen to trunked stuff. Is this for a beginner that can't follow directions or doesn't use computers? No it's not plug and play. If you're looking for a police scanner look elsewhere. If your looking to learn this is a good buy at this price

This is one of many inexpensive DVB-T dongles originally intended for off-the-air television reception in Europe. They don't work for that purpose in North America, but it turns out that with free software they can be used as software defined radios (SDRs) from about 45 MHz to 1.7 GHz. I used it with gqrx software running on Linux, and was able to receive a great variety of signals using TV rabbit ears as an antenna. Even the tiny antenna included was usable, especially with clip leads added. With either one I could pick up FM broadcast stations, weather radio, ham radio on 2 meters, and much more. I was also successful picking up position and altitude telemetry from aircraft using dump1090 software on Linux. If you don't have Linux, gqrx is also available for Mac, as is other free SDR software for Windows. This product worked very well, but I have reduced my rating by one star because the MCX antenna connector broke. The connector body on the circuit board looks very substantial, but the part which snaps onto the antenna cable was pressed in and eventually popped out when the cable was pulled sideways. The connector is on the side of the dongle, not the end, and that makes it even more vulnerable. I replaced this unit with a NooElec NESDR Nano, which appears to be a sturdier design with equal performance. However, this unit could last a long time if you are careful to avoid sideways forces on the antenna connector. If you do not use the antenna provided, you will probably need an MCX to F adapter or cable. I recommend a cable with a right-angle MCX connector to reduce the chance of damage. The remote control included in the package has no known use unless you are receiving DVB-T signals.

Worked great in an ads-b setup on a raspberry pi. No issues.

It’s ok good quality easy to connect

I know NOTHING about SDR and its function in the world. But I DO know that I love tracking aircraft online and the best way to get into that is with the SDR in this product. I loaded the OS I needed on my Raspberry Pi and plugged this little fella in and tada(!), I am tracking all the aircraft within 60 nautical miles of my home! It does exactly what I need it for and I can't be happier - seems to be a high quality construction and certainly has worked fine from the moment I plugged it in. I do worry about anything that has to be attached via USB permanently, but put it in a place where it won't be accidently hit and you're good to go.

Headline says it all... ordered 2 for 2 separate rigs, both had the same offset of 15ppm to dial in, and drift is running at +0.01/0.02 to -0.01/-0.02ppm. I would suggest getting a usb extension cable to move it away from other electronics, as they do receive signals pretty good. Had one fairly close to a tv, and learned I'm going to need a new tv soon..(I noticed some interference when adjusting the tv volume. Gotta love the waterfall in those sdr programs!) So far, these two are working flawlessly! Reception for sdr use? I can't complain. The offset is real close to the mark, and drift is very tight. Much better than some of the other rtl sticks of the same style I have tried! Running them on 6' usb 2.0 extension cables. They run a little warm, but nothing at all drastic. About as expected, and comparable to any other rtl usb stick, as far as the temperature goes... As with any radio signal receiver, the better the antenna, the better the reception, but the included antenna seems to work just fine for general use. Everything seems to be of decent quality, so I would say, you would be happy with the purchase. Both of mine shipped from 2 different locations, and both are pretty identical in every way. I'd have to give the quality control in production a thumbs up! For use as a cheap scanner, the supplied antenna works fine(depending on your location and surroundings you mileage may vary), ADSB, ACARS, no problem, FM reception is great, if you want to do other things such as listening to HAM bands and such, I'm sure you "could" with the supplied antenna (given the right conditions) , but I would recommend getting the proper antenna for the frequency range you plan to operate it in. The proper antenna for your use, makes a world of difference. Once you dial in the offset, and use the correct antenna for your application, you shouldn't have any problem. I can't stress that enough, not all antennas are created equal. Aside from the proper antenna for your application, would be placement.....Higher the better, more unobstructed the better. Now, enough with this gibber jabber... I'm going to go play with my new toys some more!

Worked well when installed. Quit after a couple of months.