SDRplay RSP2 On The Air Experience

 

 

SDRplay RSP2

 

There's not much to it:  

Just an antenna on the front, and a USB cable to the computer connected to the back.

  

Everything  else  is  done  in the computer.

 

 

Living in Europe, the biggest fear is of course performance on 40m.  Just how much overload from shortwave broadcast stations will this tiny radio be able to cope with?

 

Being anxious to try it out, I connected an 80m OCFD antenna (Windom) to one of the antenna jacks, connected the USB cable to the computer and installed HDSDR control software.

 

Initial daytime performance seemed quite acceptable, but how well will it perform at night?

 

To be or not to be.... to overload or not to overload;  that is the question.

 

 

THE  PRESELECTOR

 

This preselector was designed by DL7AV. I built it in 1977 while working for Rhode und Schwarz. 

 

It is tunable from about 6.9 MHz up to 7.3 MHz.   It has a 3dB bandpass of about 30 kHz and ultimate attenuation of about 35 to 40 dB.

 

The switch below the tuning knob switches between a 20 dB attenuator on the left, OFF in the center, and ON to the right.

  

NOW TO THE RADIO:  This is my first time playing with an SDR receiver and I do not know much about using panadaptors and waterfalls.  I have not used HDSDR before so I am unfamiliar with all of its adjustments.

 

Of course I was impatient and jumped in and tried it without taking the time to study up on the software.   The initial results are shown in the short video below.

 

I will study up on the software and try to optimize the adjustments for this radio at my QTH and then run this again.

 

For now, here are the first results:

 

SDRplay 40m in Europe
SDRplay RSP2 with and without DJ0IP HomeBrew Tunable 40m Preselector. The antenna is an 80m OCF Dipole from Aerial-51.
042.mp4
MP3-Audiodatei [17.2 MB]

DOWNLOAD 40m Preselector Info (in German)

 

40m Tunable Preselector by DL7AV
This is the design I followed to build my preselector.
40m Preselector by DL7AV.pdf
PDF-Dokument [1.3 MB]