The CHEAPEST SDR Radio on Banggood. Is it any good ? 

Impressive once again from Fred. Informative, honest, simple to understand. Fred got me back into SSB!

Hope your feeling better Fred, I heared on my cb last night in Sheffield, the skip from Scotland Dundee and he said he had coms with you, thats great Fred. Regards to you and Mrs Fred

Thank you so much for a great and detailed review. These SDRs that are cheap are so important for a base or emergency kit. Interface is tough, but understandably designed. If there’s a better cheap kit item, please link, but this is at least a base item.

I’ve just ordered one for my first radio and your video is extremely helpful so thanks for that. I’m starting off as i said and I’m doing it at the start on a low budget and would help with finding an outdoor aerial for a low price.

Frid in the shed your utube videos are awesome

As usual another really good review Fred. 👍🏻

Great video Fred my thought are that these problems will probably be addressed in a future firmware update

I bought one of these radios this week . I'm very happy with it. They of course could've included a pair of Head-phones or Ear-Buds with it. Whenever I bought a new radio they usually included this item.

Quite a few Charlie Tango stations coming up to Angus Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 yesterday hope to catch you over the summer Fred

Another good video Fred 😊

For low-power ham QRP applications when using a homebrew transmitter, this might be a good choice for a portable receiver. It does not have a hardware speaker mute automatic function like traditional communications receivers but seems compact enough that it could be worked around. The 800Hz CW bandwidth isn't horrible, but I have built 250Hz audio filters to plug into the speaker jack to help receive only the signal I am interested in. This is the first I have seen someone publish the receiver bandwidth specs, thank you, sir! Davey - KU9L

Not being able to tune from the waterfall is a deal breaker Fred. Thanks for the info. All the very best. AT132

Just now I’ve a telescopic dipole with a wire on it hooked up with a crocodile clip attached and picked up on 20m Ham someone in Italy wishing everyone he picks up a Merry Christmas,I also heard some of his contacts but couldn’t make out where they were from

I wanted to buy that too, but then I decided on the ATS25x2. Thanks for your video, 🙏

Frid in the shed your sdr defined shortwave receiver is awesome 👌 👏 👍

Well, I guess you sold me on this unit, I wanted the Russian version but that is far to spendy for my old pocketbook, under a hundred bucks though, that got me. I plan on using it when repairing old radios and taking it along on road trips to see my grand kids, and for visiting my doctors who are a hundred and some miles either North or South of me, depending on the specialty. My caner Dr. is to the South, my urologist is North, and my regular MD just retired, so I am not looking forward to meeting his replacement, but they come to our small town which is served by one Am station that rebroadcasts on a low power FM unit so we can get FM Stereo if we desire. To please most folks, they do farm radio in the morning, country radio (for the ranchers) in the afternoon and plug into an oldies station for we old farts who love old rock and roll after supper. I spent over 60. bucks just to get a decent amplified AM/FM/SW antenna that I have mounted to a down drain from my gutters in the corner of my Kitchen/living room roof system. It brings in the old stations we got when I was a kid living on the old home place with zero interference since we had no electric power or running water. Nights were amazing, you could see billions of stars, we loved laying out in the grass at night and finding constellations, I think it helped make me a moderate success writing Sci Fi short stories, I have had several published in magazines.

Excellent review Tacky though just being honest 👍🏻

That's where I landed on this unit. It's close to good, but the interface just isn't there. It wouldn't take much for them to improve though. Just a few touch events so you can select functions and frequencies with touch. Seems like a no-brainer to include those features, but there was probably someone wearing a tie who wanted to get it out asap to impress someone with a nicer tie.

Pushing in that knob while selecting options is ridiculous, I like the price but not touching the screen to pick a frequency is a deal breaker. Thanks for saving my money with the review. Lol :)

I recently bought this one off banggod for about $100.00 US. I would say it's good. Some good, such as the display, but pushing the knob in to change functions and frequency choices took a bit to understand. I also have the Silver ATS-120, the ATS- 25 original model and the newer ATS- 25 Decorder. I also do SDR on my PC and tablet with the Dongle RTL SDR V3, and recently the version V4. My new more expense one is the SDR Play Duo, Dual receiver, with Uno and the new Connect interface. 73 de W2CH Ray New Hampshire. 😊

One thing I would have liked to see is coverage of the 70cm band.

How does this compare to the TinySA Ultra? The TinySA Ultra is a spectrum analizer not meant to be used as an SDR, but it has a much wider bandwidth uninterrupted from like 0.1Khz to 10ghz, and it has a listen mode. Plus the touch screen is actually implemented and you can click where you want to tune. It seems to me the TinySA Ultra would be a much better buy. Note: there are two TInySA's, a standard one up to 930mghz for $60, and an Ultra version with bigger 4inch screen for $120 that can go up to 5ghz / 10ghz.

Very splendid review. Looks like they could improve operation with firmware updates? Yes or no? Seems like an excellent price for its abilities and build quality. Nice camera work in this video Fred.

Hi Fred I do enjoy your content sorry about the Giuseppe post not sure how it got onto your RU-vid must be old age 😂

Great review. Too bad it doesn't do the NOAA weather band ! (162.4xx MHz) It is very close to being a perfect travel receiver. I agree with your assessment, especially the lack of NFM. So close !

Frid in the shed I learn lot from you about cbs radios with AM FM ssb

Hello, thanks for a great review. Does this radio have a ferrite bar/loop for AM MW Broadcast? Thanks! EDIT: I don't see one on the schematic on the back (Doh!) so, no.

I just ordered one of these and I hope the bugs have been fixed. I’ll report back if they have or haven’t been resolved.

Ha, , it's got an IRQ "interrupt request" display, , , reminds me of my AMIGA Motorola 68000 assembly language days in 1992, , i think an IRQ 7 was high priority level interrupt

Can the firmware be updated? How to delete or modify a memory channel?

The larger USB connector is a USB-A socket which according to the USB standard can only be a host ie. output (or power). The smaller USB-C connector on the other hand has an ID pin which depending on what you plug into it can be Host/Device/OTG. As this is a device guess what, that's where the computer connects. I would suggest never buying something that doesn't follow the standard lest you smoke something else, or the device itself.

Good vid Fred learnt a lot from it so is there something thing as a total novice I could buy that has the CB bands on it as well and will search for channels in operation that has the same waterfall effect that will give me a chance to stop it when I hear something interesting that won’t break the bank or I don’t have to use a computer with ?

I was the 1000th like do I get a prize !? :) Great video !

Looks nice but not very interface friendly. Thnx for video !

Yes, additionally, while it tunes VHF up to 149 MHz, it does not allow narrow FM for 2 meter repeaters, or others below that freq.

What 'item' was selected when you were able to change the spectrum frequency width? After several uses, my waterfall went nuts (looks like noise on an o'scope) and the spectrum section is now insensitive. I guess we get what we pay for. Dale

Pity, that malahite DSPs dont include this 4.3inch display.

Thanks for your excellent video, Fred. Do you have a recommendation for a better done Malahit clone that comes closer to the original Russian SDR radio? Short of the big color display and panadapter, perhaps the Russian Belka DX could be a superior radio. Thanks for your thoughts, Michael

One thing, if you want to connect to the PC hold the encoder in and power on, it will take you into the pc connect mode

I just heard some Scottish guy shouting you on 19, at 19.59 on 5th June 2023, I'm in Manchester, couldn't hear you reply. 😄👍

I ordered this one on Banggood and waiting for it....

When it arrived, it only switched on, when it was plugged to USB power. Not enough time to test it because after three days, it stopped working completely.

hi Fred, thanks for hee vid, have you tried programming this receiver ?

The interface seems to have some similarities to that on the nanoVNA vector network analyser and TinySA spectrum analyser. Perhaps there was a companion software program with the original device, which might work with this one. Is there a user group for this device?

What your thoughts on AOR 8600? Scanner? I used to have the AOR 70/30 SW the one with the speaker 🔊 on top of set All with Antronn 99, plus starting to come back on the C.B this year

several gaps in the frequencies and only 149MHz at the top. Strange to have a GHz prefix then.

I want to tell you about the radio but I will get to that in a moment. It has a touch screen but I will get to that in a moment. It has quite a few features but I will get to that in a moment! Geez mate!

From the looks of the front display, you would think you could CHANGE all the displayed parameters, but no...... Eh. Half-baked design. No thanks. But your review made all this EVIDENT! Thanks, fred!

What would you recommend instead for a sdr that does do the things you mentioned with the waterfall and touch screen?

Regarding firmware upgrade: I'm not an expert in USB standards, but it seems that the C-socket is only connected to the PCB by the outer two pins in each side, however the eight middle pins are not connected it seems. On the other hand, the datapins of the USB-A power out port, seems to be connected to the ARM chip, via R30 & R32 - so I'm wondering if it's possible to make a connection via the A-port? There is a pic of the PCB on Banggood.

I found that a longwire for 75 meters was easy to make

Looks to be a possibility for a second radio only for trips.

A good SDR can easy go to 2GHz with 0.5ppm stability.

What's spacing can u go to on airband 8.33 hopefully

Hmm... "I think it tends to overload so I keep the agc off" Well, do you know what the agc is ? It is a function to reduce gain so overload does not happen. Anyway thanks for the review. Interresting piece of gear for the price. It has multiple issues in the software though. May need to wait for a software update.

to bad this doesn't have an analog or hdmi input so the display could serve a second purpose like for a backup camera or with a raspberry pi.

Is is possible the encoder knob is not adjusted properly. Maybe try loosening it, pulling it out just slightly and tightening it again. It will allow more inward travel to make the contact.

I'm looking for a practical SDR transceiver?

impressive price.. i got the original Steepletone MBR7 Vintage Airband Radio awsome performance

I have one. Not a bad radio. But I'm unable to connect it to any computer. No computer recognizes the 1 MB storage space. Anyone else have this trouble?

I agree, that knob thing is a malfunction. Deal breaker for me. Too bad, it looks like a really decent sdr unit.

Hi fred, I tested this one against the ATS 25 Amp on a Skyscan Desktop Antenna, and it outperformed the Ats on the 40m band, granted the encoder is a pain to use and I dont think the firmware can be easily updated

Fred is there a version of this radio with waterfall with a big tuning knob like ats25?

I will try to build my own SDR based on raspberry pi and touch display + battery.

Needs a software update to reach its potential

Nice Radio indeed, does it have gaps in the frequency range. E.a. Military band etc?

Nice video, one minor niggle, when you cutbetween videos would you pleases let the video you cut from finish the sentenceas it ( at kest to me) is a pitt jarring having sentences cut off mid way, at any rate thanks for the video

Can you connect this to a PC and display a larger graph on your monitor?

WHERE CAN I BUY ONE PLEASE AU 😊

Probably we have an RX here to keep an eye on.

I never understood why are there so many different radio receivers, with all the buttons and options, switches, and whatnot... Obviously, I am not even an amateur, nearly an observer of this community.

A bit disappointed not having Narrow Band FM for CB 27MHz 10 Meters 29MHz FM and 2 Meters Band 145MHz

@Fred -- Write this on the blackboard 100 times: Al-you-MIN-ium If you want to say the American version, write this on the other side of the blackboard 100 times: Al-oo-MIN-um.

Alumium?

So i hear that the drift of volume up and down using shortwave is caused by the waves of the sea

Hey Fred. What area are you in? I've got a new antenna for my handheld CB and would love to try and make contact if it's possible. I'm in NW London.

Aloomium? Ee dont caul it aloomium.

seem like the same as the ats series etc,half work but assholes to use compaired to a proper radio,bit like a prc-320 compaired to a ham transceiver.

Where do you get the stand from?

Can this be used for listening to the shipping channels

this one is US$108.00 but it only goes up to 149 Mhz

What software could you use with it from a PC and what would it identify as ?

Some owners peel off the screen protector , they prefer it that way, it looks clearer too.

Dors this receive better than the rtl sdr?

Thanks for the review. Is there a way to turn that horrible waterfall off? And could anyone please explain me which child invented that waterfall and what the added value might be?

Good presentation Fred, but I can't see the point of it. Someone please explain it to meplease. Cheers.😁

I have this radio and you can just keep pressing the button to get to your selection.

I have just received my radio today and sadly it all works except the touch number pad. You touch the frequency and the number input doesn't come up. You touch the spectrum display and the radio freezes you touch three more times and the number pad shows, you touch a number and it jumps back to the main window. No way to input a frequency from the number pad. Is there some way to reset the whole radio? Also how to set the time and date? Oh, that's because the radio is defective. Is there a way to see the firmware version? I have found out this is what DeepSDR is called a a BAD clone and cannot be updated. Sad, I got a defected clone. 😢 The update for the DeepSDR 1.0.1 you can adjust the volume and the frequency on the screen easily by touch. If the PC can see this clone as a drive I would love to know because my PC cannot.

Greetings: SMA has no place in this application. BNC is the norm and good reason. From that U til about halfway thru presentation I have lost interest in such product. U keep mentioning a comparison unit. Perhaps U can reply the Mfr/Model. Perhaps I would B more interested in such. As amateur radio operator I prefer functionality. I am not a fan of SDR unless it is added feature of the older style (programming, memories, computer viewing. I do like the spectrum display however I have no use 4 wasted screen real estate on the 'waterfall'. Thx 4 the share.

Hello, I received the SDR from Banggood today. Actually the knob is difficult to play for all functions. Unfortunately it does not connect to the PC (Win 10). He tells me he can't find the driver. Can I download it from some site? Thank you

Add a ten watt TX for another £100 and they will have a winner.

Have they fixed this by now? Seems like there is almost no reason for it to have a touchscreen if you can do almost nothing with it.

To me a "radio" means transmit and receive. Does this do that?

The sideband sigs weren't tuned in.....annoying.

where can i get one of these SDR units from online, can anyone point me in the right direction please, many thanks x

Same as the deepelec, no firmware updates. Don't bother.

Can it make you a slice of toast, brew coffee , roll you a joint and chop a line .If not it sucks

that is good but 100K-149MHz......

They answer me: "the machine doesn't connect to pc" 😱. But when you try to connect to pc the sdr write on screen : " attaching the device to pc by usb c, is appears appears as a removable disk. So they say false!!! It is definitely a tactic to not refund the customer

Just checked price UK £73!!