(Source: Southgate ARC)

Carl Laufer’s RTL-SDR on HamRadioNow

Carl Laufer isn’t a ham (yet), but he got caught up in the RTL-SDR craze in his home town, Auckland NZ, as he was completing his PHD

He began writing about them, and selling them, on his blog at www.RTL-SDR.com, and soon discovered that the little SDR receiver dongles could stand some improvement.

So he designed ways to make them work better, and contracted a Chinese manufacturer to build them with his mods. That just about doubled the price, from $10 to about $20. Yeah, big deal.

TAPR invited Carl to come to the 2017 Dayton Hamvention to talk about them at both their Friday Forum (part of HamRadioNow Episode 324) and as the main speaker at the TAPR/AMSAT Banquet.

And we got him for a conversation with HamRadioNow’s KN4AQ and PhasingLine’s Chicken With Fries in the SIB back in Tent City.

Watch HRN 328: Carl Laufer’s RTL-SDR on HamRadioNow:

Click here to watch on YouTube.

I got to meet Carl at the Hamvention this year–what a great guy and his website is certainly the best source of information about the RTL-SDR.

I should note that I also met with contributor, Mike Ladd, in person at the Hamvention. Mike now works for SDRplay.

This is one of the great things about gatherings like the Hamvention–it brings together so many people that you’d otherwise likely never meet in person!