SDR Receiving: taking it easy...

I've recently been taking an interest in listening for, rather than tranmsitting WSPR of late.  I find this is a nice way to 'keep the radio fire burning' whilst I get on with other things.  Often, there are fascinating and unusual spots to be heard.

But using my rigs is a little bit like using a hammer to break a nut: power hungry, not a very good use of expensive equipment, and rather heavy to carry around for /P work.

So, having spent a long time looking at various SDR possibilities, I finally settled on the SDRPlay RSP-1A.  At £89, I thought this was a much more sensible balance of cost and performance than going for the Airspy HF+ which, although it gets good reviews, is £229, or roughly half the price of a new Yaesu FT-450 rig.

I managed to get £4.50 knocked off the price at RadioWorld, just by searching online for a discount voucher.

We'll see how this 14-bit receiver does in comparison to rice box rigs at HF; it should arrive tomorrow, if I'm lucky.  Beyond that, I'm quite persuaded by those on WSPRnet who recommend the Red Pitaya.  At 349 Euro, that's quite a good deal.