V4 R828D RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA Software Defined Radio (Dongle Only)

Working great so far although its not exactly "plug and play" (which I expected) .. I'm using a Pi3 with the PI-SDR image. Works great with SDR++ on the image. The one issue I'm having is not being able to pickup AM broadcast bands. I suspect thats antenna related but not sure yet. This has been fun to play around with. Not allot going in my area with uv- vf so cant comment on that yet. I have a MLA-30+ antenna coming soon. Will update here more after that. I can say its definitely an improvement over ver 3 just because of the increased coverage. Looking forward to installing on a android tablet .Update - works great. Overall .. these are cludgy to use compared to a dedicated radio, but fun and allow you to learn and experiment with several spectrums of RF. I was finally able to get AM but ended up installing and using on a Win11 machine. You will probably want to set up multiple antennas to use with one of these. The MLA 30+ works great on HF and lower bands but truly doesnt perform well at all above 30 MHz (expected). For that I'm going to try a simple setup with a DPDT switch and use a long wire (by long I mean about 15 feet strung along the floor). The ability to go lower in the bands makes this a worthwhile purchase. I never went the route of the upconverter before because of the added cost and hassle . Plenty to experiment with and learn. Now that I feel like I have the antenna situation addressed and have a baseline I can start tweaking the software and bookmarking stations. Nice to have good sounding stereo FM radio available on my PC setup as well. I still have a couple things I want to try - like going portable in the camper, completing a comparison of SD# and SD++, things like that. This thing will keep me busy for a while.

Works well with HDSDR on Windows 11,

Took me a while of trial and error to get this to work properly in an SDR software. I put that blame onto the software, though, not the hardware.

If you look at the product photo there is a prominent URL listed. I suggest visiting it before buying the product, because this Quick Start Guide will explain what's necessary in order to install the software that makes this thing work. It was fairly straightforward, as I avoided the mistake I made installing it for my V3 dongle back in the day. But just be aware the technical level needed.I chose the suggested SDR Sharp software (which is no cost).While I haven't done side by side comparisons, I get the impression that the V4 dongle is more sensitive than the V3. There is a long list of other improvements, particularly filters and isolation to prevent interference from strong local signals.I didn't buy the full kit with an antenna since I already have all the antenna accessories from my prior V3 dongle; however, I never ended up using them. Better, I found, is an antenna such as the MLA-30+ or a long wire.I installed it both for my Windows 10 tablet and Windows 11 desktop.Update:I had serious issues installing Windows 11 update 24H2 because of the software driver required to use this SDR. Installing the SDR driver requires a special tool (Zadig) to install and it can't be simply deleted. One will have to find a removal tool to get it out (not sure, but it might have been DriverStoreExplorer). One must install the Windows Update and then install the driver it back. And even if one does this, part of the Windows Security memory management protection is disabled by the driver. It took me a month and a half to find out why my Windows Updates were aborting at 75% and backing out. Because of this serious software issue, I downgraded the rating from 5 to 4 stars.

Fantastic for the price. I got one of the first SDR Play RSPdx boxes and was completely disappointed. The hardware seems like it could be good but the software is an unusable mess, and getting all the switching and filtering to work with other software never worked. After being frustrated with endless trouble tickets and support that clearly didn't have a clue, I gave up. I had a buyer for the SDR Play on craigs but at the end of the day I wouldn't have been able to sleep after selling him that useless piece of garbage. Fast forward to the RTL-SDR V3 with a HamItUp. Worked a lot better than the SDR Play (what doesn't?) but it was noisy and switching it on and off and turning on the offset in the software was a pain. I ordered the RTL-SDR V4 the moment I first saw it and I am impressed. It works (unlike the SDR Play, which isn't even a good paperweight), it's several dB quieter than the HamItUp and there is no offset to deal with. This is a real winner, and at the price it's a bargain. I have a couple of V4 in the USB-C version on order and can't wait to get them.

Works great. It took awhile to install the software but less thann30 minutes

I found the v4 a substantial improvement over the v3, especially for HF (also known as shortwave) signals. It's also excellent for FM broadcast-band reception, although not as sensitive as my Airspy HF+ Discovery in that it cannot receive a station I enjoy that is 40 miles (64 km) away. The Airspy receiver has no problem hearing that station, but then the Airspy costs almost five times more than the v4. I consider the v4 an outstandingly good value for how little it costs. Also: the v4's two connectors ... to the antenna and to the computer ... work much better than those on the Airspy. A slight jiggle tends to interrupt the Airspy signal, requiring me to restart my SDR++ app, but that doesn't happen with the v4. I have attached small stick-on heat sinks to both sides of it (see photo) since it runs warm and I will be using it outdoors in hot weather.

Listen to just about anything out there. These little thing are awesome. I use them to decode P-25 with SDR-trunk and to listen to aviation traffic on SDR Sharp.