In the past, traditional good quality superhet receivers have tended to be somewhat expensive as they required a fair amount of hardware in terms of mixers, amplifiers and filters. In the last decade, modern software defined radios have turned this on its head and now, a good quality receiver can be bought for a very modest price.
In October 2020, the Mid-Ulster Amateur Radio Club had a lecture about the SDRPlay range of receivers. These are generally well regarded in terms of performance and price.
The video can be viewed below. It is somewhat long at 1hour 38mins.
The main presentation starts at 02:29 and runs until 49:30. After that, there is a Q&A session which lasts for another 50 minutes.
I bought an RSP1a and won another! They are outstanding value for money, and at least as sensitive at HF as my FT-450 (and that puts me regularly in the top 10 globally on WSPR RX).
ReplyDeleteUnlike the FT450, though, I can take the RSP1a in a rucksack with a Raspberry Pi and have a top-class SDR receiver set up at any location I like. All running off a USB battery bank for hours on end.
But their real benefit is in acting as a broadcast AM receiver. Switch on, and go back to the old days of listening to far-away propaganda stations!