Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 SDR - NESDR SMArt HF/VHF/UHF (100kHz-1.75GHz) Software Defined Radio. Premium RTLSDR w/ 0.5PPM TCXO, SMA Input & Aluminum Enclosure. RTL2832U & R820T2 (R860)-Based Radio

I have owned one of these for about 3 years now and to be honest it is the best RTL-SDR dongle available. With the ability to tune into HF frequencies using the direct sampling option, the Nesdr Smart is a complete package. I have used it with many software radio programs such as SDR#, HDSDR and other stand-alone decoding applications and it has performed amazingly well. Don't waste your money on inferior products. If you want the best, pay a little more for one of these and you won't be sorry. This particular model does not have a bias-t option, but to be honest, I don't thing you need it unless you insist on using a LNA or upconverter. Made in America / Canada, it is leagues ahead of the cheap Chinese offerings. An excellent purchase.

I bought this because I've had a Nooelec SDR dongle previously and wanted to add HF reception for shortwave and ham listening. It's easy to set up using their get started page and it basically uses the same drivers and utilities as other RTl-SDR dongles, which makes things relatively easy. I've tested it on Windows, Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and Android, all working well with standard drivers and apps. The ony thing I would say for Android though is that the current maxes out around 300mA (so says the datasheet anyway), so for extended usage you'd probably want a powered USB hub /otg-cable (you can get USB-C PD ones online for a few buckpounds). While I have a Hamitup for lower frequencies I wanted to have HF in the dongle for casual scanning and for ease of carrying when going away and doing a bit of holiday DXing. Obviously that means I expect the HF reception not to be as good as an upconvertor, but I was pleasantly surprised by the range of shortwave stations, the limited noise, and audio quality, I got just using a few metres of wire and the Balun 1:9 (a Nooelec SDR accessory for making long wire antennas). So overall it seems a pretty impressive and inexpensive USB RTL-SDR dongle for everyone from beginners to ham operators, especially those who want an easy way into shortwave and HF ham listening.

I was hesitant to buy this as I wasn't sure of its compatibility with OpenWebRX, and I need not have worried. I flashed OpenWebRX to an SD card, put it into a Pi4, and it's run seamlessly. It seems sensitive enough on HF, VHF, and UHF, and I will be buying a second one (one connected to a discone and the second to an HF antenna). I have a 20-year-old discone with 10 m of RG58, and I'm still hearing planes on 1090 MHz at 70 miles. The limitation is you can only see 3.2 MHz of bandwidth at a time, but this is better than most cheap dongles. I would recommend this as a good start into SDR; the frequency range went lower than most of the other dongles, and it has better frequency stability.

Really great little device that was up and running quickly using SD# (SDR Sharp) and several plugins for Scanning and DMR decoding - the latter much easier than when I tried this in the early days of such dongles. Howerver . . . the device kept freezing withing a day of getting it and by elimination, it was because even the slightest movement of the device in my laptop's USB port or in a USB Hub would kill it. I can only assume there's a defective connection inside this particular dongle - returned and immediate refund issued after drop-off at a local Amazon Fresh store here in the City of London. I have reordered though and this time with the Ham it Up Bundle which I'l looking forward to using. Can wait to take this kit out of the city and try some other modes - satellite reception maybe?

Great little SDR dongle. Getting up to 100Nm through ADS-B. Unfortunately it wasn't working out of the box with "usb_claim_interface error". Here's how I got it to work on Raspberry Pi 3B+, it should work the same on newer models as well: First install RTL-SDR driver with "sudo apt install rtl-sdr" Next up, edit /etc/udev/rules.d/20.rtlsdr.rules and add: SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bda", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2838", GROUP="adm", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="rtl_sdr" The 0bda is the vendor ID and 2838 is the product ID (visible under lsusb - change if it's different for you "Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:2838 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2838 DVB-T"). This will enable non-root access to the USB device for flightradar etc. Now reboot and you should see it's working fine under rtl_test - ready to install f24 or any other ADS-B tracking software.

Does exactly what it should. Works great!

I'm rating this product three stars because the advertised frequency range is misleading. The product description claims coverage from 100 kHz to 1.75 GHz, but the unit I received only functions natively from 24 MHz to 1.75 GHz. My primary reason for this purchase was for use on the HF bands (below 24 MHz), which the advertisement led me to believe was possible. While one can access HF on this device using the 'direct sampling' mode, this is a common workaround for most basic RTL-SDR dongles and is not the native, continuous coverage implied by the product page. This critical detail should be stated clearly. The dongle performs well as a standard RTL-SDR, but it does not have the special HF capabilities that were advertised, which was a major disappointment.

Manage your expectations, better than the 15-20 pound dongles but not like the airspy dongles. For me it worked well though I had to use an old cpu heatsink to keep temps down for digital voice. Gets hot very quickly. Very sensitive to nudges and bumps while in use and doesnt help usb A ports are weak so not very user friendly. Despite all that it's a good fit for introduction to the hobby