It's all about the Software

Hello to all on the forum and apologies if I'm asking questions that have an FAQ somewhere I've not been able to find.

I be you can tell whats coming....

Okay, here goes! I'm not a computer type person (still use a paper log book), but I am determined to learn as much as I can.

To that end I purchased a 'AO100 receiver kit' from Passion Radio. I mounted the LNB etc on a tripod and having orientated it with a sighting compass and an inclinometer am reasonably sure it was pointing at the right place in the sky.

Having powered every thing up, initially things seemed to be working. However, the waterfall display what simply showing very broad band noise, the audio was the same mush - by the way, both the LNB and the laptop we're on battery power.

I placed my hand in front of the LNB and there was a very definite change in signal displayed, which leads me to believe it was working (how well, is another matter).....

This evening I retreated to the radio shack and decided another approach, I removed the bias T from the system and then connected the dongle to my Cobweb antenna sitting on my mast. Having tuned the console to the 20m band I was disappointed to see nothing on the display except regularly spaced spikes and again the audio was white noise - even when I did see evidence a signal trace and tuned onto it, I still didn't hear anything.

To pre-empt any questions, yes I used 'ZADIG' and the computer has confirmed its existence via Console. I have a slight concern in that my dongle actually says R860 & SDR rather than the R820 option in the software selection, but I'm making an assumption that shouldn't really matter??

So, to recap, I've had two attempts using 3 very different antenna's and I haven't actually heard a thing (other than white noise), when I have seen what I think is a signal trace, I still haven't been able to resolve a single thing

I have ordered a copy of 'The Hobbyist Guide to RTL- SDR', to build up my knowledge base, but in the mean time if anybody has any wisdom to share I would be very grateful.

Best regards to all,

Lin.

Did you change the gain of the rtlsdr dongle above its base level? 19 dB give or take a few dB seems to be a reasonably nice level of gain to set it too. I'd not try to power much in the way of anything other than a simple one stage LNA from it's bias-t port.

{^_^}

Lin,
Presumably the kit includes a suitable size dish?
I can never line up a dish soley by measurements, some tweaking is almost always essential.

Check the dongle with VHF unless it is modified to receive HF, minimum frequency is about 28MHz.

Alan