In response to our post on inexpensive SDRs based on the RTL2832U, Jeff Benedict writes:

Here’s a website that has a lot of info on cheap SDR gear.  They have a write-up on an external board which adds HF capabilities.  I have one but haven’t done anything with it yet.

http://www.hamradioscience.com

Jeff  KB7AIL  CN88

Thanks, Jeff! Has anyone tried HF with any success? I’m curious how well this über-cheap receiver will cope with adjacent signals and blowtorch stations within the HF spectrum.

Meanwhile Neil, blogger on Fofio, commented:

I have an RTL-SDR system up and running.  I have done 2 demonstrations for my local Ham Radio club.  One on the basic setup and use of the dongle, using both SDR# and HDSDR.  The other presentation showed the remote receiver capability using a Raspberry Pi as the receiver with the dongle attached and a remote SDR# computer decoding the stream over a network connection.  Once I compensate for some minor frequency discrepancies it’s a pretty good receiver.  The only issue I have noticed with mine (one of the early E4000-based models) is a tendency to overload in the presence of a strong signal.  We have a pretty powerful 2 Meter repeater less than a 1/4 mile from our home, and when it’s active it causes some strange results with the RTL-SDR setup.

I have yet to try one of the HF converters they make for these.  I hope to do that soon.

Another project I was reading about today that I may try out is using 2 of the dongles at once to create a trunk-tracker scanner.

Wow! Two $20 USB SDRs and a little PC magic could yield a trunking scanner? I want to hear more about this. Trunking scanners tend to be both expensive and complicated. If a web-updated database could be downloaded and used to control this sort of rig, the possibilities would be most impressive!

Neil, keep us informed!