RTL-SDR Blog V3 Software Defined Radio + Dipole Antenna Kit
A $35 USB dongle that turns your laptop into a radio telescope capable of receiving everything from aircraft transponders to meteor ionization trails at 100 MHz.
Software-Defined Radio (SDR) replaces analogue RF hardware — mixers, filters, demodulators — with digital signal processing algorithms running on a CPU or GPU. The RTL-SDR V3 uses a Rafael Micro R820T2 tuner chip covering 500 kHz–1.766 GHz with a 28.8 MHz sampling bandwidth, converting RF signals to in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) baseband pairs that software reconstructs into any modulation scheme: AM, FM, SSB, CW, ADS-B, NOAA weather satellite, ACARS, FlightAware feeds, P25 trunking, even passive radar. The included bias-tee (4.5 V, 180 mA) powers active antennas directly from the USB port.
- Frequency range: 500 kHz–1766 MHz (with direct sampling for HF to 28 MHz)
- 28.8 MHz instantaneous bandwidth; R820T2 + RTL2832U chipset
- Includes: SMA dipole antenna set, MCX-to-SMA adapter, 3 m USB cable
- Compatible with SDR#, GNU Radio, GQRX, ADS-B feeder apps; Windows/Mac/Linux
Every purchase directly funds independent physics research at the Golden Physics Project.