Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, John, for sharing this video review of the DX Patrol SDR receiver.
The reviewer gives the DX Patrol high marks on shortwave performance, but admits that there is a significant learning curve in terms of software installation and tweaking settings for performance.
At 79 € ($110 US) the DX Patrol is certainly an inexpensive wide band SDR. Unlike the $20 RTL-SDR dongles, the DX PAtrol requires no external up-convertor.
Click here to purchase the DX Patrol online, but keep in mind that the reviewer above noted a 6 week turn-around time for shipment.
If you have experience with the DX Patrol SDR, please comment!
LOL, I am surprised anyone has had one delivered at all. Once he has your money, it is like pulling teeth to get a sensible reply. Endless excuses when he finally deigns to reply. I ended up getting a refund after 3 weeks waiting. If you do your homework around the web, he is well known for poor customer service. I wish I had checked before sending off for this vaporware. Save your money, get an SDRPlay or Airspy. They get delivered and simply work, with comprehensive support.
My DX Patrol barely received VHF, HF not at all. The software install took many HOURS. It is a waste of time and the $100.
Hello,
ok so i installed this little devil on my desktop windows vista, now i have had a little experience with installing these USB devices such as the NooElec NESDR mini 2 on my laptop. However, the DX-PATROL USB 2 is different, i did not get the RTL2838UHIDIR on the Zadig installer, i got Bulk-in ( interface 0) and (interface 1). i read a website says to install interface 0 and i did.
now when i went on SDRsharp i put the -40.000 shift and selected the RTL-USB device and checked the VHF was working i think fine, but the HF was no Joy, i cant receive anything under 28.000mhz even above it dosnt sound right
the guy in the video above says that there are a few settings to be adjusted in the SDRsharp software
if anyone can explain more on the settings i would very much appreciate it
73’s
Dear friends,
I am very grateful for this mini SDR receiver. I did installed in a Lenovo laptop, first I did downloaded the file of installation… from http://sdrsharp.com/
This software it will install the driver software called “zadig”, but the PC or Laptop need to be connected to internet.
You can receive signals in HF free of noise or Pc interference.! 73’s
http://youtu.be/dSMS3ta_Dko
Enjoy it!
Got it to start working, don’t know how. I plugged the usb into my computer and left it all alone while I ate lunch. When I came back my computer had accepted it but not as a RTL2838 but as a RTL2832U and the USB ID was 0bda 2832. I fiddled with the SDR Sharp program and it worked with a short wire stuck in the antenna connector..
Need to mount my H-800 SkyMatch Active Antenna on the roof.
I bought the SDR receiver 2months ago, got it today. Installed all the software, followed the online instructions, but ran into a problem when I plugged in the receiver to the usb port. My windows 7 machine would not recognize the receiver “Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)” it is listed as an “Unknown device” in the device manager. I tried pluging it into my powered usb hub, same results.
Help! I think I got a bad one. Good bye $110.
Use ZADIG which is in the sdr files. Use this to load the drivers.
They are all bad. Mine did not receive HF, and the VHF was so insensitive that it would not receive all but the loudest signals. The Zadig driver is the most user unfriendly install I have ever seen. I have wasted hours on this device, not to mention the $100.
The makers of DX Patrol were at the Ham Radio fair in Friedrichshafen, Germany, this weekend. So I got my DX Patrol without any problems: 75 EUR to them, a little black box to me 🙂
They have changed the exterior a bit: The LED turned green and was moved to the right side of the box “north” of the switch.
Today I tried to install the box but failed:
* On my quite botched Win7 system SDR# gives the cryptic error message “one compatible device found, but the device is busy”. This will have to wait until I have finished a project on that machine. Before that I cannot re-install a good image on the hard disk.
* I tried to install RTLSDR in my Ubuntu system but found that I do not know enough about Linux to debug the make process.
So my review has to wait a bit.
Hello. Have you installed the driver? If you haven’t dn’t use the system installer use ‘zadig’ which is in the ‘sdr-install’ file. If you have done this I have no idea but go and have a read of this, but it is for the MK3, but really the troubleshooting page should be a difference: http://www.dxpatrol.pt/images/Docs/DXpatrol-MK3-SDR.pdf .
Thanks, all the best
Dean Denton (EuropeDX)