RTL-SDR enthusiast and blogger Akos has recently uploaded three new articles. In his first article he discusses what he believes is the differences and advantages of Generic vs Premium branded RTL-SDR dongles.
In his second article he shows how easy it can be to perform the direct sampling mod on newer dongles, as most have the direct sampling break out pads. He shows how it can be as easy as sticking a wire into these holes. Please note that if doing this we would caution you to take decent ESD precautions as these pins are not ESD protected.
In the third article he reviews the recently release Nooelec SMArt dongle. The SMArt is a new RTL-SDR variant which comes in a smaller black case, cooling via thermal pads and with an SMA connector. With these modifications it is very similar to our RTL-SDR.com units, however the one advantage of the SMArt is that it is small enough to fit two side by side on closely spaced USB ports, like on the Raspberry Pi. In the post he shows what is inside the SMArt and discusses various points such as heat generated, included antennas and performance.
The post RTLSDR4Everyone: Review of the Nooelec SMArt SDR, Direct Sampling and Generic vs Premium Dongles appeared first on rtl-sdr.com.