NESDR Smart HF Bundle: 100kHz-1.7GHz Software Defined Radio Set for HF/UHF/VHF Including RTL-SDR, Assembled Ham It Up Upconverter, Balun, Adapters

This is a great piece of tech and I have barely scratched the surface in its capabilities. It was purchased to be able to listen to FT8 transmissions. In the future it will be used in many ways I can not imagine yet. Please note that a great deal of learning is needed to truly get this thing working how you need it too. Also the infinite levels of tweaking will kill a mere mortal. First off I would like to point out that after I purchased this I received an email from the seller outlining that the drivers are very important. Thank you to the seller! Follow their directions and it is pretty painless, as long as you are familiar with software installation. If not then Youtube is your friend. This is the first time a vender has warned me ahead of getting their product. The CubicSDR software that they ask you to use, I did not like, but it works. May be fine for you. So far I have settled on using AirSpy SDR, it pipes the audio to a Virtual Cable software and it then sends it to WSJT-X. Just search this on Youtube if you are interested. It seams to display everything I am wanting. Waiting on my cables to hook up my radio. Stinking covid... I watched a pile of video's and read what I could find before I got this. If there is a better one for the cost, I did not find it. There are more expensive ones that will transmit as well. Now I want to call out the guy that said you could use 75 ohm TV coax when you are listening only... Well if you tweak it for about 10 hours, sure you can hear something. Maybe even get some FT8 through it. But no you will not like it at all. I'm no rocket surgeon, but I can tell you what I see. The Ham It Up converter that I received requires a -125,000,000 Shift to be put into the SDR software. It is important, at least in AirSpy that the offset has comma's in it. Even though it shows dots in the menu. This was close to an hour of Googling. This guy does run hot! So far it has not given out. But I place it where it can get as much air as possible. Lessons I learned the hard way: Extend your USB cable before you use a length of cable between the SDR and your antenna. I found that if I had a 16 foot of "China Best RG-58u" in the mix, I received no signals that could be processed for FT8 and mostly noise. The cables and adapters just produced to much loss i guess? The connectors that I received are good. Use a meter to test the ones you get, just to be sure. Cables that you buy need tested as well. The antenna's that you get, make sure you know which one to use. Bigger is not always better. Look online for an antenna calculator and plug in the frequency you want to hear and it will give you the 1/4 wave length, then setup your antenna accordingly. Look up this kit on youtube and see how to configure the balun for longwire and dipole antennas. This is the only antenna that has worked for me. The others are for wave lengths I'm not interested in yet. One antenna will not do everything. I did try using this on a Raspberry Pi 3b+ and a Pi 4 2 gig and I found that the cpu was not enough to get rid of clipping in the audio. Pi's are great, but not for this in my mind. The software was running the cpu's at 100%. I now run it on a Windows 10, i7 . Nothing is lost and it runs at 20% cpu.

This is a BARGAIN! Ive had so much fun playing with this SDR. Some Caveats, follow the emailed instructions to the letter. The instructions for the driver loading software are incorrect. They say the device will show up as NE SDR.... it does not... it shows up as Bulk Device.... the instructions tell you the address of the device which does show up correctly. Once the driver was loaded I loaded the software and have had a blast with it.... no its not a Flex Radio... but it is a well built little sdr thst you can shove in your laptop bag so you have a radio with you on business trips... the Ham it upconverter is great too. One thing the description is wrong about saying NE SDR covers 100 khz to 1.7 GHz...this is incorrect. NE SDR natively covers 25 MHz to 1.7 GHz. You need to use the upconverter to receive below 25 MHz. You also need to put a -125 Mhz offset in the SDR software. Once you do you can receive HF Ham Stuff and shortwave. This is really a good deal. Highly recommended!

Good value for money, well made. While it is an entry level model, It functions well as advertised and is recommended for beginners as it’s software compatibility is superb across various operating systems. It is fully supported by most open source SDR software.

This is a great starter kit. The first receiver dongle was intermittent, which resulted in a replacement being sent quickly. Since then, I bought a second RTL-SDR dongle. And neither the replacement or new one has given me the first problem. I'm buying a second up converter shortly. Be sure you install the driver EXACTLY as instructed. NOTE ON SPURS: Not all SDR software allows this receiver to perform at its peak. Too many programs run AGC much too high - it makes things seem more sensitive, but this causes overloading, and stations showing up everywhere. Receive quality almost rivals some of my "Big Name" ham radio gear under many circumstances.....rivals, but not exceeding.... I use the SDR receiver on a laptop with Windows 10, as well as a Motorola Z2 Play and Samsung Tab 4 via OTG adapter cables so the dongle can receive power from a LiION battery which powers the up converter as well. The dongle will definitely get quite warm, this is completely normal!

absolutely brand new to radio and everything surrounding it, but this kit has a good little variety that i was able to learn tons with it so far! cant say much for the technical aspects or anything in-depth, but if you're also new and wanting to test the waters, get it!

I'm not new to SDR devices, having used them for a while playing around in ADS-B technology. As a licensed ham who suffers from antenna restrictions and space limitations, I thought I'd give the HF bundle a try. Once you get used to programming your SDR software of choice for the -125MHz offset, this setup works really well. Note that the offset is only necessary on the HF bands, on VHF and UHF bands you remove the offset and flip the handy "Upconvert" switch off. I'm still working on optimal antenna setups to use with this but I've already received some stations across a number of bands. Kudos, too, to Nooelec. I have not needed their assistance in using the product but, they reached out be email even before I received the product with helpful hints on getting the product operational and they have proactively reached out to make sure I have everything that I need to be satisfied with the product. Well done all the way around!

This is my experience-yours might vary. I would give this package of mismatched devices 0 Stars. It does not work out of the box. There is no plug and play with it. It is a USB dongle with a HAM it up box with it- for what, I don’t know… does it do something, its unexplained. There is no manual, no instructions , no step by step do this, No software included to load into the computer- NOTHING! I have been around computers my whole life. I loaded SDR++ and other software programs that supposedly work with Nooelec Smart/ Ham it up. None of it works! I did hours of troubleshooting and reading BS on the internet and I even went to Nooelec website-no help and nothing to help. So beware. My observation/my experience- I bought a bag of something, but what?? It did not work for me. Maybe, if you can devine the secrets to the Universe or actually build HF Radios from thin air, but for the rest of us, think twice! This was my experIence. Good luck to you! If you want a workable radio that works thru all of the bands AM thru HAM or Satellite, you are going to have to spend the big bucks. Don’t waste your time and money on cheap non working parts, pieces of scrap that won’t load into any software program and won’t make a pop or static noise of any kind. By the way, I contacted Nooelec. They referred me to a youtube video THAT DIDN’T HELP! Again, maybe your experience will vary and maybe you’ll be lucky. For me, I’m saving my pennies to buy a REAL RADIO that works! I’m done wasting my time with junk ( my opinion of course).

I read a lot of the reviews on Amazon about this bundle so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I thought the Ham It Up might be useless. Not the case. After a couple of days of tinkering and research I got the upconvertor up and running and was even able to do some lightweight DXing using the included telescoping antenna. Be sure to set the Shift in your software to -125,000,000. Don't forget the minus sign like I did. For me, reducing the sample rate also helped. This really is a great product and the possibilities are endless as to the neat things you can do with SDR. Update: For those having trouble with the Ham It Up, this may be obvious to some, but frequencies below 14 MHz (20m HAM band) are best received at night. During the daytime you have a good chance of getting transmissions above 14 MHz. Also, I have tried using the Ham It Up in Windows 10 with SDR# and Kali Linux with SDR++. By far, the Kali setup works the best. I don't think you necessarily need the Kali Distro, that is just my setup. I will admit that the time investment needed to get this bundle operational is higher but if you do the research and don't give up the payoff is great.

Great little device.... some assembly instructions would have been nice but youtube had all the answers. In my opinion the manufacturer would do well to include some freeware just so folks could get it up and running right away and not have to spend hours searching the internet but once you have it sorted out its a great device to work with. I opted for the whole bundle to include the "Ham it up box" because I wanted access to the ham bands.... and it works really well.... with a decient antena....and when you have figured out that you have to modify the software to operate on those frequencies. All in all.... a good piece of kit.... have to say though...the dongle does run a little hot for my likings ...... but so far so good. Ariel wise..... depends largely on your location... if you can erect an outside ariel....DO SO !!.... unfortunately I am stuck with indoor ariels but with a little research on youtube I was able to construct a really good sensitive unit that does the job nicely.....spend some time researching ariels and how they work .... it will pay off and you will end up with a neat little dongle that turns into a powerfull and versitile srd radio.

De mon côté cela fonctionne très bien (chez d'autres j'ai entendu dire que c'était mauvais). Pour ma part, je fabrique mes antennes moi-même et j'utilise les meilleurs logiciels ... ça fait toute la différence !!!

購入してから日はたちましたが2024年7月になって設定を始めました。バンドルは認識しているのですがまったく受信できず機能せず。ドライバを何度も再インストールして設定し直しても機能せず。自分の設定が悪いのかと思いいろいろ調べてチャレンジしたのですが機能しません。何をどうしたら良いのかもう手は尽くしました。もうよくわかりません。

Premetto: restituito perché troppo impegnativo (necessario stare davanti al PC per usarlo....e ti rapisce...). Necessità di un'antenna OTTIMA, altrimenti non può essere apprezzato. Funziona benissimo ed ha un tumore di fondo bassissimo. Sì ricevono onde lunghe, corte, medie e tutta la banda scopre le FM....(antenna specifica per ogni range di frequenza, indispensabile). Funziona con diversi software, ma Airspy e' il più semplice e gestibile. La frequenza e' precisa al millesimo in ogni stazione. Se avessi tempo lo ricomprerei (ho optato per un portatile wifi che riceve in streaming tutte le web radio).

Die in den Kits mitgelieferten Stabantennen sind eher etwas für VHF / UHF, das ist ja klar. Dafür ist ja der Balun da. Ich hatte mir dieses Kit vor einigen Jahren gekauft und fand die Performance auf HF nicht so schön (Ich nutzte zu dieser Zeit den Balun mit einer Langdrahtantenne ca. 15m. ) Ich hatte mir dann aus dem Internet die YouLoop-Antenne "nachgebaut" und damit war einfach mal viel besserer Empfang von HF möglich. So habe ich mir dann nachträglich die "Originale" YouLoop von AirSpy dazu geholt. Damit empfange ich nicht nur ganz gut HF (und den Powerline-Störsender des Nachbarn gegenüber) sondern auch auf VHF erziehle ich ganz brauchbare Ergebnisse.