2020 SDR Guide Ep 4 : Antenna Basics for SDR Beginners inc RTL-SDR / Nooelec NESDR SMArt bundle 

Hi, great video, lots of interesting info, I wanted to point out that from 5.6db of loss, twice as much signal (logarithmic) loss would be 8.6db of loss. When dealing with db every 3db is a double or a half for -3db in your signal loss power. So from 5.6 db to 11.0 db of loss, the difference in db is 5.4 (close to 6) it would be close to quadruple (half and half again) the loss in signal power from one end to the other... db can be tricky if you don't take into account the logarithmic (sp) nature of the numbers.. Regards WB7OND...

FR, thank you for not having extended musical/graphical opening segments, and for not a lot of pointless blibber-blabber just to extend the length of your vids. Only rich content. So nice.

3 years late on this comment , but absolutely wonderful course so far! There is nothing I appreciate more than someone who is obviously passionate about this subject teaching something they love so well!

I love the audio quality... very radio-like... 😄

Finally a Sdr video that doesn't require you to be a ham operator to comprehend.

A suggestion for a future video topic would be "working with coax." You could discuss tools used (strippers/crimpers/continuity testers) and maybe demonstrate their use.

Outstanding video! This is incredibly helpful to SDR newbies like me. Your demonstration of the basic telescoping antenna and the effect is has on the signal was great, I'm never going to forget that.

Nice to have things in laymen’s terms for beginners. You are providing a great service for the hobby at the most important level. Thanks.

An excellent series of videos, many thanks for taking the time and trouble to produce these, been using SDRs' since 2011, learnt lots from your videos

Your description of sizing a dipole antenna really helped me understand today. It wasn't until you laid it out that I really got it. I'm brand new to this. I appreciate it.

This was awesome. Three years later you have taught me a lot of basics I clearly needed. Thanks.

Very focused and wealth of information with basics and background. Very practical advice opened up a world of using equipment without spending $$$

Duude! Thanks for making these videos. I'm learning a lot about things I didn't know about SDR thanks to you, Greetings from Mexico

Fantastic video. I’m frequently surprised at the quality of free instructional videos on RU-vid.

Great info I just got the nooelec v4 and needed the info you provided as I live in a condo in Calgary thanks and I look forward to the next instalment

This videos is simply perfect and insightful. I can use 75 OHM cable for RX use. I love that! Thank u so much bro!

Great video. Technically accurate and fun to watch. Keep it up!

Excellent job. Thanks for the great info. 3 things I really liked ; working through the tables, experimenting with antenna lengths and showing it live, and suggesting USB extension over long coax. Liked, subscribed, w/ bell.

Thank you for the great introduction material - respect for you!

thank you for this content. I'm just getting started in amateur radio and SDR

Thanks for this, I needed a crash course in antenna theory after getting the SDR dongle.

Good video! A lot of really useful information here. Thanks!

Great explanation, as usual. I have been using YouLoop antenna with great results on HF and VHF and even on UHF (70 cm band). Fantastic SNR results. Thanks for your input in previous video.

Gona get me one of those little dipole antennas. I wish the Nooelec came with one!

Good information. Nice video. I like! Big thanks!

What an amazing video! Thank you so much!

Very useful! Thank you very much.

Excellent video! Your discussion about antenna tuning was spot on! And I laughed when I saw your laptop, because mine's a Dell, too!

Great info, thank you

"Welcome to frugal radio." Looks like I am in the right place lol

I’m from the US. I wish we would switch to metric tomorrow!!! This is very helpful antenna info!

Thanks for taking the time to produce this video, You do a great job at explaining, I have my first SDR (Airspy HF+ Discovery ) on its way to me in Australia and a passive magnetic loop antenna Regarding the adapters @14:27, would a standard TV antenna on the roof be worth the adapters, would it cover any interesting frequency's or not

I prefer RG11 if I know I am going for the weak signals and want to eek out as much signal as I can plus I can manage how thick/stiff it is (great to bury as well) otherwise RG6.

I use the TRAM 1410 along a home built vertical (vertical has 4 band ranges on separate elements). I also use, strangely enough, a terrestrial HDTV antenna turned sideways, so the elements are vertical. The TRAM picks up more, but weakly when it does being a zero gain antenna. The home built vertical is most sensitive and unidirectional but prone to picking up RFI when any gain is applied via the SDR. The best overall, for targeting repeaters is that $40 tv antenna. Despite being essentially directional, it has a range that is almost double of the vertical 4 element unit, and will pick up other signals outside it's 'cone' at or about as good as the TRAM so long as it's not sourcing from directly behind it. I always use RG6 quad.

This is the most informative and divulgative video I've seen about this topic so far, thank you so much, I'm so glad you created this channel! That being said, here's one more request You mentioned "low swr" about the discone antenna. That's an acronym I've stumbled upon before but could not understand despite trying. Wikipedia defines it as "a measure of impedance matching of loads to the characteristic impedance of a transmission line or waveguide." which leaves me totally puzzled. Do you thing it could make sense to create some videos to explain this and similar concepts to newbies? Assuming that it would be possible to simplify such a topic to make it available to a wide audience. It might not be the case maybe.Thanks and congratulations again for this video and the channel overall.

Here's a great follow up to Ep 4: Frugal filters. I have a FM radio broadcast in town that's causing ghosting along the FM band on my RTL-SDR (at the very least. Probably lots of other problems). Ultimately, I'd love to see a DIY 'bubblegum-and-paperclip' solution that filters out exactly 200 kHz centred on that specific frequency...but...I'll take what I can get! XD

Thanks for using metric.

Nov 2021: Might one run several different types of coax depending on which part of the band is being scanned? Perhaps RG6 in paralllel with RG8X to possibly two independent antennas?

Putting my lingering interest into practice, I've recently bought the RTL-SDR kit. I've experimented a bit with it and it loads of fun. Searching the 'net for information, I stumbled on this video which helped me understand some basic things about antenna's. Thanks for that! Now I'm curious and I want to know more! Can you advise me on some books/guides/lectures on the principles why certain antennas work best for certain use cases? PS: no need to apologize for not understanding the imperial system. Only 3 countries in the world are using them ;)

Of course it's my antenna placement :/ I do know better - we have plaster walls (the plaster is embedded in a metal lath). since the metal is grounded by nature of being attached to the building, it's probably acting as a signal dampener. That means I need a better antenna mounted on my building's roof (which I'm sure I can do). THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE!!

Great video as usual. Can you recommend a book or video that shows a newbie on how to attach the connectors to the cable? Thanks

Thank you for your informative channel. I now have my RTL-SDR blog V3 dongle and I'm receiving some signals in rural Alberta, a few (200 Kms) south of you. I've ordered the Tram 1410 antenna and the adapter kit. I'm planning to use the RG6 cable as you've suggested but would like to know what adapter I'll need from the antenna to the F adapter on the RG6 cable. Can you help me with that? I've watched most of your videos now in this series and I'm loving the hobby so far. Thank you again.

i would love to see how you build the spider antenna

Thanks for this. I learned a lot. My local airport is about 40 miles away for me. Would I expect to be able to receive signals from its control tower using an SDR with a kit aerial?

Where did you get that window telescopic dipole antenna? I can’t find it anywhere. Great video! Thank you very much!

Bro , when will you be posting the 5th episode of rtl sdr series. Eagerly waiting for them.....

Also, should the gap between the elements be taken into account? The RTL-SDR dipole have one or two centimeters of gap between the elements. For a UHF antenna that could make a significant percentage of the overall antenna lenght and I'm dubious whether I should take that into account or not and why. Thanks!!

I've been looking at coax on HomeDepot and Lowes websites and I see that there is dual and quad shielded coax. Do you think quad is worth the extra expense? Also, wrt the cable tv active splitter boxes - as they're designed more for VHF/UHF, how well do they handle HF?

Anyone know how got that visual display of how well his antenna was tuned? I have a newer version of the software but have no idea how he's testing the antenna. I didn't know that was thing. 11:42 is where it starts.

Thanks again....With a Dipole Antenna, is the reception any better by it being Vertical or Horizontal....? =)

Do you have a suggestion for a good LNA to use on a dipole with the range of 25 - 1300MHz?

just got my RTL-SDR v3 working with HDLSDR, havent suceded in even getting sdr sharp to even startup successfully. Ya know I knew antenna size made a difference but wow that's huge. You can also order a T-31 1-1 balun on antenna to coax & T-43 7-1 on 61' dipole in inverted V Laying across roof or just above it you get best of both worlds. At least a HAM friend told me.. I'm about to set mine up soon when I get balun cores in mail I will prob do a video.. Also gonna figure an antenna for listing to Fire... Fire station is a block away..

would it be possible to setup up two or more antenna's for different frequencies and connect them to a single coax lead without causing inference or would you need to separate leads, would the two antenna's need to be connected to 2 different sdr dongles also would the antenna's need to be further away from each other to avoid inference or could they be mounted on the same pole and if so how much separation would you need between antenna's

start a Patreon so we can give you money for all of this good info!

Can we use an active signal booster if the cable length is very long?

Can I connect directly to antenna? I want to set up on on 10ft tripod with 10ft of usb cable

I have two antennas in the same location, One vertical and one homemade dipole, When using my SDR receiver (Airspy R2) then the dipole I built gives me much better and clearer reception - But here is my question: Why does the dipole I built need around +40 gain, but the vertical seems to peak at +30 - If I go higher it is just fuzzy and noisy. Why does a better antenna "need" higher gain ? when using a SDR receiver ?

So with RG-6 75 ohm, did you use a 43 balun to match to 50 ohm & if so what ratio 2 to 1, 4 to 1, 9 to 1?

I've got an old set of telescoping "rabbit ears" for receiving analog TV .... Is this not basically a dipole antenna .. it looks almost identical to the one you have

Does it make any sense to connect several dipoles in parallel in the same cable? I mean to put two or three couple wires in the same hole, that way the same cable could carry the three frequencies at the same time.

QUESTION: does the dipole antenna have to be vertical? i imagine it's not necessary.

Any comments on using RG316 to connect an antenna to an SDR?

Hi, hi the floor of noise is better with magnetic monopole??

yes, your presentation is emensely helpful. i thought i would return the favor with some private info i keep to myself, as metric people tend to get white knukles and red in the face when they think their favorite metric system is under attack. but this isn't an attack but gleaned from years of searching around since the nineties for an answer. after years of researching i've come up with a uhmmm-formulation(don't know what to call it.) I never archived my research, so the following is from memory... meters are based from the North pole, over the surface of the earth, stopping at the equator. It's a recent theoretical constructed invention. imperials measurements are based on previous measurements, as it passed thru the hands of Britain > Rome > Greece > Egyptian > ? It was originally based on pole to pole divided up by(i have forgotten) 1 or 10 or 100 million. It ends up with a unit roughly a finger tip length long. each has its advantages. I prefer imperials because the earth's axis barely changes it length, while the metric does in accordance to celestial objects and orbital speed. Wishing you and your family the best, and keep on posting, great stuff!

Hi, I would like to use my RTL-SDR to listen to CB and HF, but I only have the antennas the came with the kit. What antenna do you recomend that does't need a lot of space or any kind of boost converter?

Hello , so i have a lot of LDF4- 50a , can i build an antenna with it ?

Could you please stop calling US Customary units as "Imperial"? The US had units when they broke away in 1776 whereas Imperial didn't exist until the 19th Century.

If I want a longer dipole can I just alligator clip some extension wires on the kit antenna?