Software Defined Radios (SDR): SDRplay RSPdx vs NOOELEC Ham It Up

The RSPdx SDR from SDRplay comes at a premium price but offers some noticeable improvements over the NOOELEC Ham It Up. Depending on bands and modes that you wish to listen to, this video should help you decide which works best for your budget.

DISCLAIMER: The following are Amazon affiliate links. If clicked, I receive a small commission if a purchase is made from a link. This is not a solicitation, but is for information only.

AMAZON LINKS for NOOELEC Ham It Up:

AMAZON LINKS for NOOELEC NESDR SMART dongle:

[thegrimmer]

I should use this to fall asleep when I had coffee too late in the day

[tomalexander]

I believe you can enter the 125 MHz offset into sdrsharp and then read the HF freq directly instead of doing the math in your head.

[danialmeister]

Fantastic shakedown of these two devices man! Thank you.

[harryholden]

When listing to LW or MW, select that range in the band panel to enable the high dynamic range feature to get the best signal quality.

[gaoldias]

While it's true that the RSPdx is almost twice the price of the Nooelec sdr+upconverter, the RSPdx has the ability to connect 3 antennas. I would also prefer having 1 piece of gear rather than 2, all else being equal.

[MachRadioIntercepts]

Using direct sampling on the RTL, or just the RSPdx is a far better configuration than using an upconverter.

When on the upconverter, you have two frequency offsets to contend with: the converter's and the dongle's. They drift differently, so you get an oddly trending offset to enter into your software. At one time, you might use 125.00130 megs, and an hour later it is 125.0020 megs. Not a big deal for AM signals, but way too much for SSB, CW, or digimodes.

Those spurs in the AM broadcast band, and elsewhere, are a key reason why a native lowband SDR is a better rx method than using an upconverter. You have added another oscillator and mixer, plus another front end where intermod happens.

Then, on the SDR, you have the issue on sampling rates.. Higher rates should fix the problem of aliasing / fake signals.

[danedewaard]

I use an RTL-SDR V3 with the Ham It Up on HDSDR software and do not get the heterodyning effect! Thanks for the video!!!

[worminstool]

Thanks for the comparison! I was wondering which to get...

[jamespence]

I own both. The Rspdx is better than Nooelec. I don't buy from Nooelec anymore because of support issues.

[Flagrazi]

You should use the same software, SDRuno is far superior than the other one. I have both RSP and RTLSDR and differences are very small using SDRconsole with is in my opinion far better than Sdruno.

[ManuelPinner]

I have the SDR Play RSP DX and a Adalm Pluto SDR,

[onthebench]

This video would have been better without the background music...

[garyhawkins]

Some links to the products you are using would be most helpful so that we can go and compare specs and pricing . Thanks

[Apostolos_Androutsos]

Great video great job and great comparison….but I have a few questions…The comparison it’s not on same frequencies and the nooelec gain isn’t on high!
So…. I would like to khew what is your opinion about these two receivers…
Which is better….
what is your suggestion?
Nooelec or Rsp….
So My opinion….I think that Rspdx has less mirrors and less overloading with hi gain but nooelec has a better receiver and more overload’s with hi gain!
Thanks anyway!

[natgriesert]

What antenna are you using this demonstration?

[waltsailing]

Great video, any chance you could compare the rspdx with the older rsp2?

[fitybux]

It really annoyed me way too much how you kept trying to center the frequency tuner on your screen instead of tuning, then using an offset from center. It's commonly known these cheap RTL-SDR dongles don't perform well at the exact center tuned frequency. I don't think this has much to do with the ham-it-up, it's just the SDR dongle you're using.
It was interesting that 60kHz could be heard with ham-it-up, but not really with SDRplay!
Is it possible that images are present in SDRplay when signals are getting through even if bandpass filters are switching in and out? 😲

[AHumanNotABot]

While this was somewhat of an interesting video this really was not a fair comparison. Comparing a stick, barely modified from its original use as a DVB-T receiver, to a specifically designed SDR receiver is not a good comparison point - even if you are using an extremely broadbanded and poorly filtered transverter to compare operation far below where the stick SDR was designed to operate. At ~$220 for the SDRplay and less than $100 for the NooElec setup for the new SDR user, casual user, or even a regular user looking for some level of flexibility the price is going to be far more important than a few heterodynes. Comparing the NooElec to an RTLSDR with another transverter would have been a much fairer comparison.

[richardpriest]

This video would be better without background music.

[mariemccann]

Just playing with the user interfaces without actually knowing what he is doing - don't waste your time.