namedpipes
NES Member
I've got two of the little buggars, one is a Chinese clone I used for years to scrape readings from my electric and gas meters. The other I picked up, branded as a FlightAware device, although it appears to be just a regular SDR inside a pretty shell. I'll look up the part numbers. Both function with SDR#. I have an assortment of "general use" compact antennas from my Baofeng plus the tuned 1090 antenna.
These are the two devices:
Amazon product ASIN B00PDM76ZWView: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PDM76ZW
(shows as Generic RTL2832U OEM)
Amazon product ASIN B01M7REJJWView: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M7REJJW
(shows as Generic RTL2832U)
Depending on conditions, I can "sometimes" tune a very strong commercial FM station and hear scraps of contact at various frequencies. Nothing reliable or clear, but it is "trying". I feel like a better antenna would help more than replacing the receiver dongles. If I can receive reliably, I'd like to build up a Raspberry driven P25 monitor for the New Hampshire trunk systems and more generally, see what it can pick up around the world and in orbit.
What is a good antenna recommendation, compatible with these, for "usually" 2 meter reception? I don't suppose I could use my old Dish TV antenna for L band...
And can this muttly pair be used for P25 trunk listening or should I be looking at current SDR devices? Perhaps they've gotten better in recent years.
I'm a General, but with little applied experience. Most of my radio background is 20 years back and more on the monitoring side than Ham, plus a little super specialized stuff tracking things. So, hopefully I can keep up with the conversation, but no practical clue on how, say, trunks work with P25 systems.
These are the two devices:
Amazon product ASIN B00PDM76ZWView: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PDM76ZW
(shows as Generic RTL2832U OEM)
Amazon product ASIN B01M7REJJWView: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M7REJJW
(shows as Generic RTL2832U)
Depending on conditions, I can "sometimes" tune a very strong commercial FM station and hear scraps of contact at various frequencies. Nothing reliable or clear, but it is "trying". I feel like a better antenna would help more than replacing the receiver dongles. If I can receive reliably, I'd like to build up a Raspberry driven P25 monitor for the New Hampshire trunk systems and more generally, see what it can pick up around the world and in orbit.
What is a good antenna recommendation, compatible with these, for "usually" 2 meter reception? I don't suppose I could use my old Dish TV antenna for L band...
And can this muttly pair be used for P25 trunk listening or should I be looking at current SDR devices? Perhaps they've gotten better in recent years.
I'm a General, but with little applied experience. Most of my radio background is 20 years back and more on the monitoring side than Ham, plus a little super specialized stuff tracking things. So, hopefully I can keep up with the conversation, but no practical clue on how, say, trunks work with P25 systems.