Nooelec NESDR Smart HF Bundle: 100kHz-1.7GHz Software Defined Radio Set for HF/UHF/VHF Including RTL-SDR, Assembled Ham It Up Upconverter, Balun, Adapters

This is a great piece of tech and I have barely scratched the surface in its capabilities. It was purchased to be able to listen to FT8 transmissions. In the future it will be used in many ways I can not imagine yet. Please note that a great deal of learning is needed to truly get this thing working how you need it too. Also the infinite levels of tweaking will kill a mere mortal.First off I would like to point out that after I purchased this I received an email from the seller outlining that the drivers are very important. Thank you to the seller! Follow their directions and it is pretty painless, as long as you are familiar with software installation. If not then Youtube is your friend. This is the first time a vender has warned me ahead of getting their product. The CubicSDR software that they ask you to use, I did not like, but it works. May be fine for you. So far I have settled on using AirSpy SDR, it pipes the audio to a Virtual Cable software and it then sends it to WSJT-X. Just search this on Youtube if you are interested. It seams to display everything I am wanting. Waiting on my cables to hook up my radio. Stinking covid...I watched a pile of video's and read what I could find before I got this. If there is a better one for the cost, I did not find it. There are more expensive ones that will transmit as well.Now I want to call out the guy that said you could use 75 ohm TV coax when you are listening only... Well if you tweak it for about 10 hours, sure you can hear something. Maybe even get some FT8 through it. But no you will not like it at all. I'm no rocket surgeon, but I can tell you what I see.The Ham It Up converter that I received requires a -125,000,000 Shift to be put into the SDR software. It is important, at least in AirSpy that the offset has comma's in it. Even though it shows dots in the menu. This was close to an hour of Googling.This guy does run hot! So far it has not given out. But I place it where it can get as much air as possible.Lessons I learned the hard way:Extend your USB cable before you use a length of cable between the SDR and your antenna. I found that if I had a 16 foot of "China Best RG-58u" in the mix, I received no signals that could be processed for FT8 and mostly noise. The cables and adapters just produced to much loss i guess? The connectors that I received are good. Use a meter to test the ones you get, just to be sure. Cables that you buy need tested as well.The antenna's that you get, make sure you know which one to use. Bigger is not always better. Look online for an antenna calculator and plug in the frequency you want to hear and it will give you the 1/4 wave length, then setup your antenna accordingly. Look up this kit on youtube and see how to configure the balun for longwire and dipole antennas. This is the only antenna that has worked for me. The others are for wave lengths I'm not interested in yet.One antenna will not do everything.I did try using this on a Raspberry Pi 3b+ and a Pi 4 2 gig and I found that the cpu was not enough to get rid of clipping in the audio. Pi's are great, but not for this in my mind. The software was running the cpu's at 100%.I now run it on a Windows 10, i7 . Nothing is lost and it runs at 20% cpu.

The other reviews had me ready for a rabbit-hole of setup. I thought it was going to take hours getting this kit to work on my computer, with lots of troubleshooting. I have next to no experience with radio but was able to get this up and going within minutes. All I had to do was1. Insert the USB SDR2. Install WinSDR drivers using Zadig utility3. Install SDR software (you might need to run a batch file in your selected software's install folder to enable SDR)4. Enter the -125 MHz offset into your software. Turn off offset when Ham It Up isn't upconverting signal.That's it. It's not that hard as some people make it out to be. It's a nice kit that works as expected and I'm really happy with my purchase.

I have used the very inexpensive SDR Dongles from Ebay on and off, but while the do work, they tend to drift like crazy and there is no native way to listen to Shortwave or many Ham Radio Frequencies. Not being a Ham myself, I have limited knowledge of the Radio Spectrum. However, I DO like to tune around and found the lack of ability to tune Shortwave stations very frustrating.I recently purchased an MA 30+ loop antenna to go with my Techsun PL-330 and Zenith Trans Oceanic receivers, so I thought I should finally splurge on a SDR with a frequency converter that would allow me to tune these lower frequencies to see chunks of the spectrum and pick out active signals to avoid endless tuning around.I run the HDSDR recommended software on Windows 10 and it works fine with both the MA 30+ and an alternate random length wire antenna I can interchange as conditions dictate.This is a nice kit that probably has all the adapters required to get it going. If you don't have an active antenna, you can use the supplied balun to throw a long wire antenna out of the window to get started. Of course, you'll need to buy or locate the wire for the antenna, but inexpensive speaker wire works fine.The kit comes with the "Ham it Up" down-converter to allow you to tune Ham and Shortwave radio stations. This converter box goes between the antenna and the USB dongle. Be sure to dig into whatever SDR software you use to be sure to enter the frequency off-set properly; it is different on each package and that setting is crucial to successful tuning. YouTube is your friend in this aspect; I found my frequency offset in a video for the HDSDR software and it is a positive number, where as most other SDR software packages require a negative number.One other thing; be sure to pause the waterfall BEFORE engaging or disengaging the converter box switch or it will freeze the dongle and you'll have to shut the SDR program down, unplug and re-plug the dongle and then restart the SDR program for it to resume receiving signals.For a non-Ham as such as myself, it was a bit frustrating digging-out all the required settings on HDSDR and deciphering the interaction between all the sliders and settings, but I managed to get it going enough to have some fun listening in a single night.All in all, I really think this is a great little package for a beginner and much cheaper than trying to source everything by yourself and possibly purchasing the wrong items.There ARE better SDR dongles out there, but this is great for getting your "sea legs" in the hobby.The only downsides are the dongle (like all others) gets pretty warm, so you need to be careful to place it on a surface that won't warp! Also, the USB extension cable that comes with the kit is really poor and will disconnect the dongle with the slightest movement, so be ready to buy a better one really soon.So far, I have been very happy with the entire kit.

No issues, have controlled this from both a Raspberry Pi and a NUC. Depending on what you are doing, I would recommend going with something beefier than a Raspberry Pi. The SDR is solidly built.