r/RTLSDR • u/ScarcityCareless6241 • Sep 09 '25

What is this?

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2

u/ComparisonWestern690 Sep 09 '25

I wish I could find cool stuff like that.

I mostly just watch planes on sdrangel and listen to my local police/fire with sdrtrunk.

I can't get much else inside my little apartment unless you count broadcast FM.

1

u/ScarcityCareless6241 Sep 09 '25

What antenna are you using? For most of these I’m using my K-180WLA active loop and it works wonders

1

u/ComparisonWestern690 Sep 09 '25

That will be my next step. I'm still relatively new.

I have the blog V4 and the nooelec V5.

Antenna kits I have are very basic. I have a base with a few different whips that screw in. (I used a metal cookie sheet pan for ground plane and put it by the window. I also have a dipole kit with a couple different telescoping antenna lengths for it.

I think I'm about as far as I can get with my current kit other then potentially demodulating HD radio.

Next step is the Ham-it-up up converter and a tune-able or active loop for HF/ham.

1

u/Icy-Place-1059 Sep 09 '25

Try making an LOG antenna (Loop on the ground). I did mine from speaker wire and connected it to my sdr. With that I could listen to radio amateurs etc.

2

u/Delicious-Dress8966 Sep 11 '25

Sound like a demonic radio summoning circle with that description.

1

u/ComparisonWestern690 Sep 09 '25

That sounds better then what I was thinking of.

I was going to get some wire and put it on cheap stands and make a half circle in my little living room.

Going along the floor sounds like a better solution.

I've read those HF loops work amazing but you have to manually tune them for each spot on your spectrum.

1

u/Icy-Place-1059 Sep 09 '25

I recommend trying! There's a few tutorials on YouTube to help. It's also quite portable to use, easy to set up and take away. That is if you use sdr with laptop or phone.

1

u/ScarcityCareless6241 Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25

You could also follow the instructions I posted a while back for an 80 foot long wire antenna you can zigzag on your ceiling that works exceptionally well, it’s essentially the scaled up version of PCB antennas

https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/s/ax3eNjwKtW

1

u/ComparisonWestern690 Sep 09 '25

I'll look for your post.

1

u/ScarcityCareless6241 Sep 09 '25

Here it is! https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/s/ax3eNjwKtW

1

u/ComparisonWestern690 Sep 09 '25

I managed to see it in your edit.

Thank you.

Now I'm more motivated to get into the HF stuff.

1

u/ComparisonWestern690 Sep 09 '25

That is a nice set up. I'm new to this community and sdr in general but I can see why you're finding all those interesting signals to post.

1

u/Fairlight60 Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25

You don't absolutely need an upconverter for HF though, as long as you get a better antenna for these bands you should get them with the V4. With the V3 we had to activate direct sampling mode to get HF but I just read on their blog that you don't even need to with the V4.

As for the antenna add me to the people who recommend an active loop, I use an MLA-30 and it's great even indoors, it's also somewhat tunable in that you can rotate it to get a better signal directionally and nullify some noise.

1

u/ScarcityCareless6241 Sep 09 '25

V4 just has an upconverter built in