First impressions of the SDRplay RSP2pro

On Friday I ordered an SDRplay RSP2pro from HRO.... and it arrived at lunchtime on Monday. (excellent service from those guys!) I've spent the last two days getting to know it. Here are my first impressions:

The radio appears to be very well-built, with it's metal case. It's not fancy looking at all.... just a black box with a couple of antenna connectors, and a usb port. I like it's simplicity. It doesn't even have a power supply connector since it is powered by the usb port.

Set up was quick and easy. It took less than 30 minutes to download the software, install the drivers, hook up the radio, and get it up and running. Once hooked up, all I had to do was run the software and hit "play". If you get one, keep in mind that it has SMA antenna connectors, so you'll probably need to order some adapters.

The software did take a few minutes to get used to, since some of the labeling is different than what I'm accustomed to... like "SETT" for settings, instead of "options". It's not a big deal though. After a few minutes, I had it down pat.

Using my 80m-40m loop, reception is superb. The received audio is better than with my Kenwood, and FAR better than with my Icom. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I've got a really good audio card in my computer, since when I hooked the SDR up to my laptop, it didn't sound nearly so good.

Tuning is very easy. You can either enter the frequency directly, or click on the desired signal on the waterfall. You can adjust the bandwidth to whatever you want it to be by simply dragging the bandwidth in a smaller waterfall.... making it simple to tune out an offending signal. So far, I've tested it on SSB, CW, AM Broadcast, 2meter FM, and SWL, and it works great on all of them. Sensitivity is very good. In fact, in a very short order I was able to pick up SW stations I'd never heard before like Radio Turkey on the 49m band.

So far I've not tried to use any of the digital modes, but according to the manual you can run the SDR with HRD or WinWarbler. That's next on my list.

Conclusion: It is a very nice piece of gear! I bought it to use it in an EME experiment, but I think I'll find a whole lot of other uses for it. It's performance on the shortwave broadcast bands, and 40m LSB is great.

 

Are you running HDSDR? How do you like it so far?

If you want wide FM (broadcast), set the rate to 192000.

 

I'm running SDRuno. So far the only complaint I have is that I can't resize some of the panes. Other than that, it works like a charm.

My plan is to try HDSDR in the near future.

 

I bought and tried the RSP-2-PRO and didn't like it, so went back to the RSP-1 which I love. Using HDSDR which ( given how I have it all hooked up ) "sees" whatever RX antenna I am using with the radio. Much easier to compare RX antennas with the panadapter. So far the RSP-1 is much more reliable than my old LP-PAN-2 with NaP3.

 

interesting. what about it did you not like? was it a radio issue or a software issue?

 

KK4NSF:

Thanks for the review!

73,

Jim N3AWS

 

It was a "didn't work" issue. The panadapter display simply didn't correlate with actual signals heard, it was dancing all over the place. When I switched back to the original RSP-1 the RSP-1 worked just fine, as before.

I think the RSP-PRO-2 I got was just a lemon.

 

it must have been.... after reading your post, I checked mine for displayed freq vs actual and it seems to be ok. I'm using SDRuno, so I don't know how it works with HDSDR

 

just wondering, I have been using a rtlsdr v3 for a few years now, very pleased with what it does for $30can.
but
I get a lot of intermod/overloading from close by commercial mobile radios, like school buses, fire trucks, etc
and the usual interferance from home electronics.
Been thinking of getting something better.

Would you say the RSP-1, 2, or pro is less suseptable to any of that, realizing that a $30dollar sdr is not a $300 unit.

 

so far I've not seen any of that. I live in a radio-busy area, with several blowtorch am stations, and lots of commercial radio activity, and I've not had any cross-over, over-mod, or anything else. Just as a test, I picked out a small distant am station that is right next to one of the powerhouses... and didn't have any problem. All I had to do was adjust the bandwidth a little, and it came in clear as a bell.