Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 Bundle - NESDR Smart HF/VHF/UHF (100kHz-1.75GHz) Software Defined Radio. Premium RTLSDR w/ 0.5PPM TCXO, SMA Input, Aluminum Enclosure & 3 Antennas. RTL2832U & R820T2-Based Radio

These work great for RTL-SDR use. Plus they give you a pack of 3 Various antennas. NooElec also sends you an Email link on how to setup this SDR up in Windows. For the price, these are just incredible to mess around with for looking at the RF spectrum or to check signal levels For Your New Scanner Antenna! You should also buy a (SMA male to F female adapter ) to hook up to some RG6 cable for an outdoor antenna setup for less interference (noise floor) from your computer, etc. Very revealing, to see just how good/bad a signal comes in to you and how high the noise floor level floats underneath. You could spend thousands and get a high end device to do that too, but this SDR (with the free software) will give you nearly that accuracy for $25. I have at least one running all the time and after an hour or so, there is No Drift whatsoever! I'm locked on a P-25 control channel and the carrier peaks exactly on frequency and just stays there all day. It has no drift. You can't ask for better specs. It receives radio signals from about the CB band (27Mhz) to about 1.7Ghz. Great for radio type "pirate experiments" too. You can hear and examine any signal you point it at, but it will only decode audio on Analog signals with the standard software. Digital P-25, etc signals will just be heard as noise bursts. For these digital signals P-25/trunking you'll need two of these SDR units and other software and yet more advanced computer skills. You can also use it to look at FM radio broadcast signals, and RDS data too. You can hear those as well. I also have the NESDR mini 2, but this is the better package deal. The case gets warm but it does not block another USB port, so this thing was well thought out. It is not a toy. NooElec gets my 5 stars vote for an Incredible Radio Receiver Device that really delivers the goods as a full fledged advanced RF Analyzer Tool with a low price. They don't know how Great it really is. I have wanted this particular device in my possession for 40 years. Great product, NooElec!

When I bought this little SDR, I was a bit discouraged by how it took extra work to get it to function on windows. It eventually did and performed well... for a while (both in windows and linux). It had success working with SDR#, HDSDR, GQRX, and I suspect it would have worked with any SDR software. Well, I used it successfully yesterday and had no mishaps storing it as usual, however, today it does not work at all. It didn't last 6 months (more like a week of actual use). I seldom used it until the last two months when I began to learn how much more I could do with a SDR. I have no explanation nor advice on how to avoid this- it just quit working. I have tried (un/re)installing (yes, I know about Zadig). No changes were made to the system it was used on yesterday. It was powered off, then powered on today and it doesn't work anymore. This is NOT an installation or user issue. I have tried it on multiple ports and more than one system, windows, linux, nothing. Before this, I definitely would have given it 5 stars. This makes me a sad panda.Now I get to play the warranty game. I am extremely grateful for the 2-year warranty... now, how to go about starting that?**UPDATE**I spoke with the NooElec support team at: support@nooelec.comI must admit to being a bit surprised. Their response was incredibly fast. In fact, it was almost immediate. It was so late in the night, I didn't bother looking for a response, but it was there, and didn't appear to be a scripted automatic response. Their support was amazing. Even through email, Sarah was quite pleasant and easy to work with. The information I provided seemed uninformative to me, but I gave all the steps I took to troubleshoot, my observations and also the two screenshots I put here (my details were a bit more expansive than what I put here). It was all that was needed to determine what was wrong. In my case, it was not deemed worthy of salvage or further troubleshooting. This is apparently a rare issue as all NooElec stuff is burn-tested for 24 hours. A bad one got through, but that sort of thing inevitably happens to almost everyone's product. I'm not trying to be a commercial, or sound like their PR, lol... just expressing pleasant surprise. A 2 year warranty speaks pretty highly by itself!A replacement is now on the way. Looking forward to it. I wish all warranty support went this easily. If it weren't such an easy process and an experience which also gave me so much confidence in their products, I would have only taken the 1star to a 4star. This went so smoothly and painlessly, it deserves 5 stars. I had been pondering which SDR brand to toy with next after this one broke... but after this warranty support, I will definitely be buying more of these! I am a loyal customer now... and my first one was a dud.If you are shopping for SDRs, get one of these. If it breaks, they'll take care of you.

I purchased this tuner to use with a Raspberry Pi for an inexpensive VHF/UHF receiver. It works very well for that purpose considering it is broadband tuner and doesn't have tuned front-end bandpass filters. I live within 5-10 miles of some powerful paging transmitters and a NOAA weather transmitter and they don't seem to degrade the performance of the tuner when it is listening elsewhere. Quite acceptable performance considering the cost.The included antenna pack works well for VHF/UHF and the cable is long enough to place the antenna away from the Raspberry Pi. You can also connect an outdoor antenna to the SMA connector if you need better performance.Installing the drivers was not difficult and Nooelec sent along instructions that were easy to follow. When using the Zadig utility, be very careful when selecting the device to install. Don't rush and you will be fine. One of our club members accidentally selected his Bluetooth adapter instead of the SDR dongle and it took a bit of work to undo that mistake. This is not the fault of Noolec (or Zadig actually) -- to one who is given much power, much responsibility is required.Please note that these units (as do any SDR dongles) run hot, even with the all metal case to dissipate the heat, so be careful touching the case after it has been running for a period of time. Although I would prefer that the operating temperature would be lower, it doesn't seem to impact performance and hopefully product life. I have a Nooelec Nano 3 and that runs even hotter and has been in service for some time now without issues.Nooelec has been very responsive when I have contacted them and shipped my orders promptly, even with the current pandemic.All in all, a solid and inexpensive way to experiment with Software Defined Radio.