We are planning to acquire the equipment for the setup of our towers in Belgium as soon as possible! With regards to the dongles, though, we are left with some questions. Especially since were not very well-versed in the technology. While comparing the specifications of a RTL-SDR v3, FUNcube Pro+, and Nooelec NESDR dongles, I found that all of them seem to be compatible with the Motus tower. However, there are significant differences in sensitivity…
From my assessment, the RTL-SDR does not seem sensitive enough to reliably pick up the weak signals from VHF tags. In contrast, the FCDs appear to be well-suited for this purpose, with a sensitivity of -125 dBm, designed for satellite signal reception (which I hadn’t realised before). The Nooelec dongles, while less sensitive than the FCDs, still have relatively high sensitivity at around -115 dBm.
Based on my research on the matter, the FCDs seem to outperform the Nooelec dongles in detecting weaker signals. However, I am still considering whether the performance gain justifies the 50-100 euro price difference per unit…
I would greatly appreciate any insights or experiences on this before proceeding with the purchase!
Only FCD deployed on live stations so far but 4 x NooElec NESDR SMArt XTR installed on the next station to be deployed shortly. The deciding point for us was indeed the price differential between the NooElec SDR and FCD.
I believe @AdamDSmith also did some systematic comparison of these options a few years ago. If I recall, the FCD clearly outperform the others in terms, with the Nooelec SMArt coming closest. As you mention, the cost difference really is significant, though, and may justify the tradeoff.
I don’t think the SMArt XTRs will perform well at all. It’s not because they are bad. It’s because the SG software is not optimized for using the NESDR SMArtee and SMArt XTR to make best use of their capabilities. RTL-SDR support was added quite a while ago and rather hastily to make it a more affordable option. So if you’re going to use RTL-SDRs instead of FUNcubes, I recommend the “plain” NESDR SMArt. The default SG settings make decent use of them. @TvE was working on making RTL-SDR settings more accessible to the user so that users could better optimize for SMArtees and SMArt XTRs, but that would only be applicable to the SG V2 software on a Raspberry Pi, not a SensorStation (at least for now). So if you’re using a SG and not a SensorStation, Thorsten may be able to point you to the relevant updates to make it workable.
Google search on differences between the Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 and NooElec NESDR SMArTee XTR:- R820T2 (R860)-Based Radio vs E4000-Based Radio
“Note that there seems to be a misconception that the E4000 is better than the R820T2/R860 because it costs more - this is not the case, the increased cost is only due to its rarity. The R820T2 is generally regarded as having better performance and sensitivity for most interesting frequencies compared to the E4000.”
And the NESDR SMart costs £15 less than the NooElec NESDR SMArTee (Amazon)