Features:

  • Premium RTL-SDR bundle includes newly designed NESDR SMArt in beautiful brushed aluminum enclosure, re-designed antenna base with 2m (6.5') RG-58 feed cable, and 3 antenna masts. Proudly built by NooElec in the USA and Canada! Full 2-year product warranty
  • A wide variety of improvements on other designs, including ultra-low phase noise 0.5PPM TCXO, RF-suitable voltage regulator, custom heatsink, 2 silicone pads and SMA female connector
  • Designed from the ground up to reduce USB port occlusion. Run multiple NESDR SMArt side-by-side with any USB-compliant device, including tightly-spaced embedded devices like the Raspberry Pi
  • SDR frequency capability approximately 25MHz-1700MHz. Frequency range can be extended down to 100kHz or lower with the Ham It Up, available on Amazon (Product ID B009LQT3G6)
  • An 8pc SMA adapter set and carrying case is also available on Amazon (Product ID B073JT98RR)
Works great, huge performance in a compact size.

Working great. I've purchased quite a few of these, and they work great with programs like SDR#, Unitrunker Ver. 2, and OP25 (*nix based). Next step is to get these running with R-pi. These are run 24 hours a day, and have been working great. I did have a small hiccup with one of the devices I ordered but customer service was on top of things and sent out a replacement ASAP. Will be buying more, for sure. LOVE the fact that I can plug in 2 devices right next to each other, the other silver cased dongles from the other company do not allow you to put them next to each other. With these, I can plug them right into a USB hub one next to the other, or even on my laptop... Definitely a good purchase. I would suggest using some LMR240 (or better) if you're using an external antenna.

Thumbs up for the new design

(I originally wrote this review for the standalone dongle without the antennas; however since it is also relevant to this package, I'm re-posting it here as well) NooElec NESDR SMArt - Premium RTL-SDR w/ Aluminum Enclosure, 0.5PPM TCXO, SMA Input. RTL2832U & R820T2-Based Software Defined Radio New design is very nice. The narrower body makes it much easier to use these in cramped quarters. Having two or more side-by-side where USB port spacing is tight shouldn't be an issue, although stacking them top-to-bottom could be an issue if the ports are close together. Aluminum case feels solid, fit and finish is excellent, no issues with either the USB or SMA connector. TCXO has a very tight tolerance; mine only needs 0.25ppm correction. Performance wise, these compare favorably to the popular RTL-SDR.com dongles. I see no discernible difference in the noise floor or any other performance category to distinguish one from another, aside from the slightly better TCXO that NooElec uses in these dongles. Both perform equally well, and are the only 'budget' RTL dongles that you should be spending any money on these days. I already own a few of the RTL-SDR.com dongles, and was previously not all that impressed with NooElec's offerings. I found them to be overpriced at the time for features that RTL-SDR.com was including at less than half the price. Now that they've gotten their prices in line with RTL-SDR.com, and have come out with this new design with a better TCXO, they've won me over. I plan on picking up a few more of these. See attached photos for a physical comparison alongside the RTL-SDR.com dongle.

Perfect for monitoring police and fire!

I've owned scanners and 2 way radios for over 20 years and suffice to say, it's an expensive hobby! With so many of the departments in my area moving to P25 digital communications, the price of multiple scanners is just beyond my budget these days! But you know what is in my budget? The NooElec NESDR! In just a week of playing with the item, SDR Console w/DSD+, and the antennas it comes with, I was able to easily hook it up to an Asus T100 tablet to monitor my local police and fire! The 6 VFOs in the free software means I can listen to 6 frequencies at once, all with this little sdr, and that's simply something I could never do with my expensive 400 and 500 dollar scanners. Yes it does get a bit warm, but the frequency never drifts, the sound is good, reception is great in my area, and it does everything I ask of it, even with my small tablet. I'm really loving this thing a lot and will probably buy at least 2 more to play around with.

Lots of fun with the right software and antenna

I've been having a blast with this and have combined it with NooElec's "Ham It Up converter to receive signals below 25 MHz. I use SDR Sharp software, which works very well. The three supplied antennas are mostly useless unless you're sitting on top of a mountain with no other electrical devices around. There's a LOT of electrical noise in a modern household. Just about every appliance - large or small - generates electrical noise. Even LED lights broadcast their own buzz. You will need a good external antenna in your attic or outside, fed with good quality coaxial cable.. I found that good old RG-6 TV coax works very well. Adding the "Ham It Up" converter will allow reception of signals below about 25 MHz and that works best with a long wire antenna or tuned dipole located as far away from any household noise sources as possible. For that, you'll need a 9:1 Balun (or Unun) to more closely match the antenna to your receiver setup (easy to make - look online). I had bought one online, but it didn't work at all (probably defective), so I wound my own.

Great kit

I was gifted one of these by a friend a year ago and decided to order another to play around with unitrunker and some other SDR UHF/VHF toys. I have yet to find any significant issues with either. The metal enclosure will get warm under load, but never to the point where I begin to worry about something melting. They are hefty little suckers, so mind your USB ports if you're dumb like me and put the thing in your laptop on your bed. The construction is superb, though. It's a solid unit. The antenna that comes with this one as well seems to work quite well, though it is hard to get it to stand upright without some Velcro or 3M tape. Overall, pretty neat little dongle. Will definitely order more in the future or as needed. They just work.

Great bundle for beginners in SDR, trunked scanning, and ADS-B

- This dongle rated very well compared to others (on RTL-SDR.com in a comparison of 19 dongles) for ADS-B (aircraft transponder) receiving. The However, the FlightAware Pro Stick was the most recommended for ADS-B, specifically, if you're only going to use this for ADS-B. - This dongle has a smaller form-factor than most too, allowing two of these to sit side-by-side in a laptop's USB ports. A blue R820T2 Generic dongle I got would occupy its USB port and block the adjacent USB port with its body. This is an important factor if you're interested in listening to trunked Fire/EMS/Law channels and need one SDR to listen to the trunk while the other SDR jumps around channels in software like SDR# etc. - All RTL-SDR dongles get pretty warm, and sometimes hot. But this dongle is heat-sinked well and cased in metal, so that heat can be dissipated easier than other dongles. - This dongle also works with an old(ish) $50 Amazon Fire HD 7 tablet, connected to a $6 "OTG" wired (on-the-go wiring) female USB-A to male microUSB. SDR touch is $10 on the Amazon app store. Flight Avare is free, but has to be installed from a side-loaded installation of the Google play-store, but no rooting is needed to get this working pretty quickly. There's also an app called "Ships" to listen to, I believe, AIS transmissions, that I also haven't tested yet (I don't live near any water). Another downside to Amazon Fire tablet usage is that I haven't figured out a way to charge the tablet while listening with the dongle at the same time, since the tablet's charging port is the micro USB port. - Finally, this bundle comes with a couple antennas, a long coax cable, and magnetic base. This is a great investment to get started in SDR.

Advanced RF Analyzer Tool & Radio Receiver Device at Ridiculous Price. Engineer's Dream.

These work great for RTL-SDR use. Plus they give you a pack of 3 Various antennas. NooElec also sends you an Email link on how to setup this SDR up in Windows. For the price, these are just incredible to mess around with for looking at the RF spectrum or to check signal levels For Your New Scanner Antenna! You should also buy a (SMA male to F female adapter ) to hook up to some RG6 cable for an outdoor antenna setup for less interference (noise floor) from your computer, etc. Very revealing, to see just how good/bad a signal comes in to you and how high the noise floor level floats underneath. You could spend thousands and get a high end device to do that too, but this SDR (with the free software) will give you nearly that accuracy for $25. I have at least one running all the time and after an hour or so, there is No Drift whatsoever! I'm locked on a P-25 control channel and the carrier peaks exactly on frequency and just stays there all day. It has no drift. You can't ask for better specs. It receives radio signals from about the CB band (27Mhz) to about 1.7Ghz. Great for radio type "pirate experiments" too. You can hear and examine any signal you point it at, but it will only decode audio on Analog signals with the standard software. Digital P-25, etc signals will just be heard as noise bursts. For these digital signals P-25/trunking you'll need two of these SDR units and other software and yet more advanced computer skills. You can also use it to look at FM radio broadcast signals, and RDS data too. You can hear those as well. I also have the NESDR mini 2, but this is the better package deal. The case gets warm but it does not block another USB port, so this thing was well thought out. It is not a toy. NooElec gets my 5 stars vote for an Incredible Radio Receiver Device that really delivers the goods as a full fledged advanced RF Analyzer Tool with a low price. They don't know how Great it really is. I have wanted this particular device in my possession for 40 years. Great product, NooElec!

Excellent package. SDR is a lot of fun...

I had actually purchased this same dongle itself (without the antennas) late last year, but I found it to be overwhelmed in harmonics from broadcast FM stations. I ended up going with a silver RTL-SDR BLOG package (with antennas). Those are excellent as well and I have two sets of the RTL-SDR BLOG packages, one for my Mac and one for a Raspberry Pi. Since that time, I’ve gotten a lot more toys such as power supply, TYT TH-9800 (using it as a “base station” until September, when I’ll be getting an iCom IC-7300, yay!), full ADS-B setup (FA Pro Plus, 1090MHz filter, RPi 0W, LMR400 cable, FA 1090MHz antenna, FM broadcast filter, LNA), Diamond Discone D-130J antenna, Dr. Ed Fong’s DBJ-1 antenna, TYT MD-380 DMR, UV-5X3 (for 220 MHz), Yaesu FT-60R, NooElec Ham-It-Up upconverter (and enclosure), etc. I’m just getting into amateur radio, but have a long background with radios (mainly SHF SATCOM) in the military so I decided to go “all out”, especially with the IC-7300 in September. I’ll be getting a true Spectrum Analyzer as well sometime this coming winter, which I plan on using to fully test out and review radios. (Let’s see how these cheap Chinese HT’s such as Baofeng/BTech/etc really perform. Are spurious emissions really as bad as some say, or are they just snobs?) Anyway, I decided to give this dongle another try and figured if I still had the same issue, I now had filters that I could use. Well, perhaps NooElec has upgraded these (or maybe I had a “bad” one before, although I find it highly unlikely that something burned into silicon could have gone “bad”), but this dongle is performing wonderfully. I like the small form factor of it and will be purchasing another for the RPi. I definitely recommend just getting the kit with antennas as it is just a measly couple dollars more and you get the antennas, although I prefer the long omnidirectional antenna that comes with the BLOG. SDR is a lot of fun and you don’t “have to” invest that much into it if you don’t want to. This kit, alone, really is all you need to get off the ground. With just these SDR dongles, I’ve been able to play around with: VHF/UHF FM, SSB, APRS, Phase25, DMR, CW, ACARS, PSK31, SSTV, etc, etc.

Bang for the buck is off the charts for anyone interested in seeing what's on the airwaves

I'm still nearing about this thing, but it was SO cool to have access to SO much with so little effort. I'm a pilot, so I was mostly interested in listening to air traffic, and this thing does not disappoint. I could easily pick up planes overhead. Picking up airports was just barely an option from where I live, but when I attached it to a Discone antenna (found one for a good price on eBay) - I was listening to both major and local airports. And of course there is a LOT more to explore. I used SDR Sharp on my Windows 10 box. It's not the most intuitive thing to figure out, but there are a lot of resources out there.

This is a wonderful little kit

This is a wonderful little kit. The included dongle has a lot of capability, and I like that it is metal to help dissipate the heat produced as well as the antenna connector being externally accessible. Very easy to set up and there are a variety of software programs available as open-source software that will allow you to use this SDR to explore the frequency spectrum. The included antennae are adequate for exploration of the AM/FM bands, but if the user wishes to explore more of the spectrum, they will need to source or build an antenna designed for the intended purpose. Overall, I am quite pleased with this purchase and I am enjoying the capabilities of this SDR unit.

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