aug 18

 Nieuwe RTL-SDR Blog V4 dongle

De nieuwe versie 4 dongle heeft de volgende specificaties:

The V4 comes with several improvements and changes that are listed below.

  • Improved HF Reception. Now uses a built in upconverter instead of using a direct sampling circuit. This means no more Nyquist folding of signals around 14.4 MHz, improved sensitivity, and adjustable gain on HF.
  • Improved filtering. The V4 makes use of the R828D tuner chip, which has three inputs. We triplex the SMA input into three bands, HF, VHF and UHF. This provides some isolation between the three bands, meaning out of band interference from strong broadcast stations is less likely to cause desensitization or imaging.
  • Improved Filtering x2. In addition to the triplexing, we are also making use of the open drain pin on the R828D, which allows us to add simple notch filters for common interference bands such as broadcast AM, broadcast FM and the DAB bands. These only attenuate by a few dB, but may still help.
  • Improved phase noise on strong signals. Due to an improved power supply design, phase noise from power supply noise has been significantly reduced.
  • Less heat. Due to the improved power supply design the V4 uses slightly less current and generates slightly less heat compared to the V3.
  • Cheaper price! The price of the R860 chip which is used in the V3 and most other RTL-SDR brands increased significantly at the beginning of 2023 which is part of the reason as to why RTL-SDR dongles have been increasing in price recently. For the V4 we are making use of an existing stockpile of R828D chips which are now priced cheaper than new productions of the R860. In a time when high inflation keeps pushing prices up this is incredibly welcome.

There are some other minor changes including a new bias tee LED and a small cutout hole in the enclosure so it’s easy to tell when the bias tee is on.