OK I am not pushing the SDRplay line of SDR (software defined radios) but I received a PM that prompted this post. Oh I?have no relationship with SDRplay then as a generally satisfied customer.

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I've owned several SDRplays and found then all adequate for general shortwave listening with the added benefit of reception up to 2GHz.

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There are people using SDRplay RSPxx receivers for police scanners, listening to aviation, listening to satellites, all sorts of VHF/UHF reception.

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I can't speak to VHF/UHF reception because I gave up listening to police and fire when they went to APCO25 digital.

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There are ways to receive APCO25 with the SDRplay RSPxx series, but, reading the "how to" it felt like a lot more trouble than it was worth to me.

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SDRplay bought the rights to a SDR control program and have made upgrades over the last decade or so to improve performance and to interface other software.

https://www.sdrplay.com/sdruno/

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Recently they offered a new program developed in house that offers vastly improved performance.

https://www.sdrplay.com/sdrconnect/

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From my perspective the fact this software only operates on Window 10/11 and that was a deal killer.

https://www.sdrplay.com/docs/SDRconnect_Release_Notes.pdf

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However this program also supports the Raspberry Pi4, Pi5.

https://www.sdrplay.com/sdrconnect-more-raspberry-pi-sdrplay-support/

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Now I don't know anything about Raspberry or Linux but a friend's daughter does, she makes embedded control systems and this was a 10 minute project for her.

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My Raspberry Pi 5 is in a forced ventilation case. It supports a nice LCD screen, keyboard, mouse, and remote access/control via Ethernet.

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I use the RSPdx for MW DXing.

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I also use the RSP-1a as a panoramic adaptor, 'spectrum analyzer', for use with my tricked out Kenwood R-2000. I use the older SDRuno with a Windows 7 64 bit professional computer that also runs audio analytic software to figure out data formats. I also use a hardware FSK demodulator to drive software decoders that another friend wrote. [sorry he plans to sell them, so I can't share copies.]

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Sidebar as they said in the O.J. trial.

I've been into shortwave listening since I was 12. I saw my first panoramic adaptor later that summer at the ham shack of a friend of my father and fell in love with the idea you could see RF on either side of where you were tuned. It took about a minute to realize I could ID SSB, CW, AM voice or music, and FSK. I barely understood FSK but the waveform was crystal clear on a spectral display. It only took 50ish years to have a spectral display.

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NOTE: While I've found the RSP family suitable for my needs, others may find them lacking. I strongly suggest anyone ready to dip their toes in the world of SDR to do their research. SDRs range from simple USB thumb drive sized units, with what might be considered marginal performance to SDRs like the Perseus or WinRadio, both offer world class performance with different approaches.

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I've played with both and both are amazing radios and come at a premium price. I'd start with something more modest, SDRplay or Airspy are probably the best, decent, introductory SDRs. I have minimal experience, an afternoon, with an Airspy SDR, I wasn't overly impressed but the band could have been dead that day. It happens.

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NOTE 2: The thumb drive SDRs are considered little more then toys by many. I have zero experience with them so I don't have an opinion.

What do you want to listen to?

I might be able to offer some advice.

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Pieter-Tjerk de Boer, PA3FWM? has a series of articles on E-Field antennas that can be extremely helpful in getting the best performance from these antennas.

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Fundamentals of the MiniWhip antenna

https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn07.html

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Grounding of MiniWhip and other active whip antennas

https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn09d.html

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[Note it is critical to properly ground the E-Field antenna at the antenna and to isolate the coaxial cable feedline from EMI generated within your home!]

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Simple and better circuit for MiniWhip antennas

https://www.pa3fwm.nl/projects/miniwhip/

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Martin G8JNJ had a very informative web page on active antennas. His use of high inductance RF chokes in the feedline is an extremely useful technique to isolate the ative antenna from EMI generated in the home. Sadly his webpage has vanished but a PDF capture of the webpage can be found at

https://qsl.net/l/lw7dfm/Antenas/Antena%20Mini%20Whip/MARTIN%20-%20G8JNJ%20-%20Active%20antennas.pdf

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His webpage is archived on the "wayback machine" but it won't always load.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230722120107/https://www.g8jnj.net/activeantennas.htm

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I use quad shielded 75 ohm flooded coaxial cable to connect to my E-Field antennas. Assuming my Kenwood R-2000 receiver has an actual antenna input impedance of 50 ohms, exceptionally unlikely, the worst case VSWR would be 1.5:1.

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The SDRplay RSP-dx has a claimed input impedance of 50 ohms over it's entire operational range. I have no reason to doubt this but no way to verify it either. Reception was so similar with the 75 ohm and 50 ohm coaxial cable I couldn't tell any difference and 75 ohm flooded (rated for direct burial) cable is a lot easier for me to obtain here in central Kentucky. The son of a member of our shortwave listening club is an engineer for the local cable TV company and can divert reasonable lengths of coax. I also have 7/8 hardline for the two antennas located the farthest from our home.

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I just connected a Radio Shack Disk Cone antenna (at least 40 years old now) to my RSP-dx and I can receive all of the NOAA VHF WX stations within 150 miles. There are more commercial FM BCB stations then I can count and I can receive a 2M amateur repeater that I know runs 50W that is located just over 100 miles from my home. Constructing a decent disk cone isn't that challenging but Diamond and others offer them for reasonable prices, so it becomes, do I want to trade money for time.

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I was going through a cluttered computer subdirectory and found the original program SDRplay used as the basis for their SDRuno software.

Studio1 was developed by one of the design team for the Perseus SDR.

The developer left the Perseus team and released Studio 1.

Studio1 is available at

I downloaded?

"SDR-Radio V3.3, 64-bit, 2024-02-05_0741"

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The program needs 5 CC+ [or whatever] on my test machine from Microsloth.

It has some very nice features, it might be worth checking out if you like experimenting.

Now to restore this PC to the pre-install version.

I use Macrium backup software as my uninstalller. I simply reboot to the backup software and pick the image that was in use before installing test software. Macrium is (or at least was) free. these things change on a random basis and there are many other fine free disk imaging and recovery packages out there.

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