Morning gents,
Just seen this flash up on FB - NESDR SMart stick from NooElec…
The 0.5 ppm “wander” looks good compared to mine (mines c51ppm), but afair that’s pretty standard for a TXCO chip?
How do these specs / people experiences compare to, say, the FA stick?
Toying with an “upgrade”, and relegate my current stick to a second station…
Is there any difference between this unit and the $24 NooElec NESDR Mini 2+ 0.5PPM TCXO other than packaging and 3 antennas? If not, I had the Mini 2+ with an inline satellite amp and got better performance after upgrading to the FA filter + ProStick.
Here’s the amazon link to the Mini 2+:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VZ1AWQA/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
In other news, I recently replaced my homemade spider with the FA 26" antenna and a 7’ MPD Digital LMR-400 cable from amazon. It improved performance but only slightly. I think I’ve just about hit my limit and the only thing that will help me is getting the antenna up higher.
It is mostly for a form factor change. You can put two of these NESDR devices side by side on a raspberry pi (see their picture).
The lower noise voltage regulator and the metal enclosure will also help lower the noise level a few dB but they are still stuck with the noisy radio chip.
The R820T2 is a great SDR radio chip and the different designs are around trying to minimize the noise.
The prostick uses an 20dB amplifier on the front end. This amplifies the signal so the radio noise doesn’t matter as much. This device will outperform in ADSB reception compared to other RTL dongles but not for all other uses.
The RTL-SDR dongle is a great RTL device. They use better components and metal case to minimize noise for $20. It just doesn’t fit side by side like the NESDR. You might get a ~2dB-3dB lower noise floor.
The NESDR Smart uses better components and metal cases. It might be interesting to compare the RTL-SDR vs the NESDR Smart since they are so similar. If you really care about form factor then pay the extra $8-10 over the RTL-SDR.
The AirSpy uses an external digitizer. This bypasses the radio noise and also adds a bunch of other improvements.
The above list are those that are using the R820T2 radio chip. They are much better radio chips but they cost goes from a couple dollars/chip to about $100/radio chip.
[quote=“david.baker”]It is mostly for a form factor change.
[/quote]
Thanks for a great, concise comparison! I’d been wondering about the wide range out there; it sounds like they’re all dividing the market pretty finely and your mileage may vary with any of these.