Nooelec NESDR Mini USB RTL-SDR & ADS-B Receiver Set, RTL2832U & R820T Tuner, MCX Input. Low-Cost Software Defined Radio Compatible with Many SDR Software Packages. R820T Tuner & ESD-Safe Antenna Input

Awesome SDR tool for $20
I’ve never been all that interested in radio, or spending any money on it, but when I saw a video describing these $20 RealTek chipset based dongles and how they could be used for SDR and radio spectrograph type applications, I was like “For $20? Count me in!”Like most people I’m using SDR# and not any of the vendor’s drivers. The thing that took me a little while to figure out was that the USB drivers for this thing have to be installed manually. (There’s absolutely no “plug and play” support for this thing at all, because the driver used by SDR# is a very generic low-level USB driver that is only designed to allow applications to essentially talk directly to just about any USB device supporting some serial protocol.)The easiest way to get this working is to download sdr-install.zip from the SDR# web site, extract it, and run the install script that will download everything you need including zadig (the generic USB driver installer), the RTL chipset plugin for SDR#, and SDR# itself.Before running SDR# you need to run zadig.exe and use it to install the driver. This requires that you select “show all devices” from the Options menu, select your RTL dongle from the pop-up menu, and tell it to install/reinstall the WinUSB driver for that device. Be careful to select your RTL dongle before hitting install or you may accidentally install this over your mouse driver or some other device. (Like I say, this is a generic driver that installs a really basic software interface for any USB device that supports certain attributes, so there’s nothing to stop you from overwriting one of the other drivers on your system if you select the wrong device.)Once the WinUSB driver is installed you can just run SDR#, select the RTL device as the input, and hit play.Tip: I’d recommend turning on the auto gain check box for the tuner (“Tuner AGC”) in the configuration panel though, unless you want to mess with the manual RF Gain control. (I was able to do pretty well just using the auto gain, but before I enabled the auto gain every signal I was getting was very weak. So you really need some sort of gain adjustment be it manual or auto.)Without much effort and using only the little included antenna I was able to pick up NOAA weather radio (narrowband FM), a number of commercial FM radio stations (wideband FM), the wideband FM transmission from a Sennheiser RS110 926MHz analog wireless headphone transmitter, and see a bunch of other signals on the spectrograph that I didn’t recognize.I was also able to pick up 2 or 3 ADS-B transmissions from commercial airplanes, even though I was sitting in my basement and using only the included antenna, though all of these airplanes were within the line of sight angle provided by the window in the room I was in. So this tuner seems to be good for ADS-B, but obviously you’re going to need an unobstructed outdoor antenna of some sort to receive signals from all directions.The remote control that comes with the dongle seems to be totally useless since it appears to be an IR device and I don’t see how a computer can even receive a signal from it without a separate IR receiver device. (The NooElec dongle doesn’t appear to have an IR receiver on it, but I could be wrong.) In any case it would require either the vendor’s DTV software or some other software to make any use of it, and I don’t know of anyone who’s written anything useful that it can be used with.At some point I’ll probably buy a MCX to some sort of coax adapter and wire up a proper antenna for it outside, but for now I’m just messing with the cheapo little included antenna. It seems to work better than I expected.Anyway, this is the most interesting $20 gadget that I’ve bought in a long time. I suspect that one day it will come in handy for helping to locate and rectify sources of radio interference.

A very good product otherwise, but flimsy antenna connector.
This is one of many inexpensive DVB-T dongles originally intended for off-the-air television reception in Europe. They don’t work for that purpose in North America, but it turns out that with free software they can be used as software defined radios (SDRs) from about 45 MHz to 1.7 GHz. I used it with gqrx software running on Linux, and was able to receive a great variety of signals using TV rabbit ears as an antenna. Even the tiny antenna included was usable, especially with clip leads added. With either one I could pick up FM broadcast stations, weather radio, ham radio on 2 meters, and much more. I was also successful picking up position and altitude telemetry from aircraft using dump1090 software on Linux. If you don’t have Linux, gqrx is also available for Mac, as is other free SDR software for Windows.This product worked very well, but I have reduced my rating by one star because the MCX antenna connector broke. The connector body on the circuit board looks very substantial, but the part which snaps onto the antenna cable was pressed in and eventually popped out when the cable was pulled sideways. The connector is on the side of the dongle, not the end, and that makes it even more vulnerable. I replaced this unit with a NooElec NESDR Nano, which appears to be a sturdier design with equal performance. However, this unit could last a long time if you are careful to avoid sideways forces on the antenna connector. If you do not use the antenna provided, you will probably need an MCX to F adapter or cable. I recommend a cable with a right-angle MCX connector to reduce the chance of damage.The remote control included in the package has no known use unless you are receiving DVB-T signals.

the OEM antenna out performs a bunch of other larger antennas, i was blown away

I’m a novice in the world of ADS-B receivers, and I was excited to try out the NESDR Mini (TV28T v2) USB RTL-SDR, DVB-T & ADS-B Receiver Set with Antenna. As someone new to this technology, I wanted a device that would be easy to use and perform well without breaking the bank.The NESDR Mini has exceeded my expectations. I’ve been using it with Flightaware, and so far, I’m impressed by its range. With the standard antenna included, I’ve been able to receive signals from aircraft up to 200-300 km away.Overall, I’m extremely satisfied with the NESDR Mini and its performance as an ADS-B receiver. It’s a great starter kit for anyone looking to dip their toes into this technology, and it’s been a valuable tool for my learning experience so far. If you’re new to ADS-B or just want a reliable and easy-to-use device, I highly recommend the NESDR Mini.Pros:Easy to set up and useGood range with standard antennaCompatible with FlightAware systemAffordable price pointCons: None notable at this time.

Yes, It indeed met our expectations