Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan (NO2CW), who writes:
I ran a test of weak signals RTL-SDR v4 against Airspy HF+ Discovery. Using sdr # and a few gain adjustments particular to each of the receivers. I ran the test at approximately 9 pm local time using the same W6LVP loop antenna from my location near Miami Florida and I was intentionally looking for barely readable weak signals. The RTL-SDR v4 is a great budget SDR receiver!
I missed this post and now they are out of stock on Amazon. Hopefully they will come back. Thanks for the excellent review.
Tom
So where is this actually available? I see it ‘out of stock’ on Amazon and no listing in the usual ‘ham’ radio outlets ….
Good job. I have a friend who has a V3 and he does not use it since direct sampling turn it much less sensitive. This test show that it is a very decent receiver considering its price. Unfortunately, import taxes policy have changed here in Brasil and now it may not be affordable for people who have small portable radios to migrate to SDR.
My V4 arrived in the 2PM post today,
I left my Airspy Discovery HF+ in place, took my Ham-it-up/NESDR SMArT offline to put the V4 in place.
I installed a new instance of SDR# for the V4, and have been A/B’ing the HF+ and V4 all afternoon.
MW, FM, VHF, SW, and HAM bands using my 80M OCF folded dipole at 30′.
Early indications here are that the V4 may replace the Ham-it-up combo.
Quite a capable little receiver, and the price is right.
Hi folks,
I have the 2023 black edition RTL-SDR Blog V3 and an AirSpy HF+ Discovery connected to an indoor Megaloop MLA-30+. I’m disappointed that my AirSpy shows electrical spikes on the FFT waveform display and AM mode SW broadcast stations sound a little bit distorted and muffled. I did consider the V4 but assumed that the V4 is more or less similar to the V3 except for its built-in up converter.
I’m using both my Windows 10 laptop (SDR # and SDR++) and an Android tablet running SDR++.
I read that some of you have both the V4 and the HF+ Discovery. Did I make the right decision by buying the HF+. Discovery instead of the V4 dongle?
Compared to my Chinese Malahit SDR V2 (ver 1.1.0d by HFDY) which is less expensive than the AirSpy HF+ Discovery, I’m more satisfied with the Malahit’s performance mated to the Megaloop MLA-30+.
Did I receive a dud HF+ Discovery or is the MLA-30+ simply unsuitable with this AirSpy SDR?
I have both of these receivers as well, and made a similar, though less rigorous, comparison of the two. I came to a similar conclusion that the V4 is pretty decent value for the money!
Rob