This is a replacement for an older SDR dongle that I've had for several years. The thing that attracted me to this one is that you can use it to monitor HF in direct sampling mode, without an upconverter. My older dongle could only do VHF and UHF.
One nice feature of this dongle is an aluminum case. These things get hot and the metal case acts as a heatsink. That said, I may fab something to increase the surface area to improve heat dissipation. (I have a mini-mill that may come in handy for this project.)
I installed the SDR# Community Package on my HP laptop running Windows 10, and started playing with it.
This screenshot shows it tuned to KYW 1060 AM, the Philadelphia AM news station. For this I connected it to an Ultimax 100 40M - 6M end fed antenna that's on my roof.
The second screenshot shows the dongle monitoring the 2M ham band, tuned to the W3OI repeater in Allentown, PA during their Monday night net. I am located outside Philadephia in SE PA, about 42 miles away from the Allentown repeater. The terrain isn't flat between here and there, plenty of rolling hills between my home at the repeater.
The antenna for this exercise was my Comet GP-3, which is attached to a five foot mast strapped to my chimney. The tip is probably around 30' to 35' up. It's been up there for about 15 years and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Future plans for this SDR include trying DSDPlus to try decoding digital modes, and possibly connecting it to a Raspberry Pi and accessing it over my LAN.
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