Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, This is my 14th SDR. and 2nd time in a few years ive bought this one. Being an FCC Licensed Technician i have a bit (over 30 years) of radio knowledge. Sure, theres cheaper ones, with weak MCX connectors, placstic (ABS) enclosures and tiny mag mount antennas that may or may not actually have working internal connections. GO read the reviews, its not just the people being clueless, they are less than optimally designed and manufactured. And they run 15 to 22 bucks, with one cheap MCX antenna mag mount with a whopping 3 feet of cable. Spend the extra $8 to $12 bucks and you get a TXCO (ill explain) an aluminum housing, and an SMA Antenna connector, and obviously better internals and assembly, at least 4 collapsible antennas, and a flexi tripod stand, suction cup mount and 10 foot or so SMA extension cable. Walk into one of the HAM supply stores and i can assure you that the antenna kit alone will set you back $80.00 minimum... So you've already won purchasing this entire kit for $29.95... 1) TCXO, Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator SDR's have a known issue with frequency drift. On HF this is apparent when you tune lets say 3.176 LSB and the cheaper SDR's tend to start drifting sometimes a few khz and occasionally mhz off frequency. Many times the annoyance is adjustable via offset, but mostly its unpredicatble. Nothing worse than chasing an HF Morse or Voice QSO up and down the frequency and eventually losing it completely.. What these guys have done with the TXCO (In laymens terms) is make a more stable chip, and then test that chip into oblivion, figured out the temperature and drift characteristics and then made a chip with a temperature sensor, and a built in code that changes the voltage to a KNOWN differential value for the chip's temperature - Thus creating a self correcting and considerably more accurate and drift-free unit in their SDR's.. HUGE BENEFIT. 2) MCX connectors suck. they are push to fit, not locking. after a while the cheaper MCX SDR's on Amazon eventually break, usually at the MCX antenna connector, or you end up taping the antenna on it. (Guilty-i have 2) SMA Connectors are more robust, and thread down and lock on, they also have significantly less loss and are more stable overall, BUT, the other bonus is SMA is now industry standard on about 98.6% of anything hand held. So finding new and cheap antennas on Amazon or Flea_Bay to test out on ANY band WONT be a problem. 3) Aluminum Housing and Thermal management internally. Remember the Drift i mentioned above? One thing SDR's do is get really warm, even hot in many cases. THEY ALL DO. A cheap SDR in an ABS plastic cover is basically a tiny oven for that cheap SDR and its components. causing bit errors, driver issues and significantly lowering the lifespan of that unit. This RTL-SDR Blog unit has a full aluminum USER disassemblable housing, and has had thermal management engineered into it. I do have several of the cheaper SDR's that ive smashed the plastic housings off and have small fans blowing across them and a Raspberry Pi project, they work, poorly. The RTL-SDR Blog units aluminum housing is part of the thermal management, as is the thermally conductive flex block internally installed. on the pcb, Yes it makes a HUGE difference. Stability is huge below 30mhz. and these units absolutely outshine ANY OTHER SUB $100.00 SDR on Amazon. Add the Upconverter, a balun and a cheap G5RV longwire or make your own (with balun) and you will hear the WORLD as good or better than some $1500-$4500.00 HF Transcievers. Lastly, LISTEN TO THESE SELLERS. Follow their instructions by going to the SDR# Page they refer you to, and within maybe 4 or 5 minutes you will be setup and listening to the world from this fantastic kit. Besides listening to the world, you can actually use them for ADS-B and monitor air traffic radar in real time (extremely cool!) get live NOAA Weather radar, check out live International Space Station Images, Watch Television and so much more. The only limitation is the software. and its ALL out there! 100% free! *I was not compensated in any way for this review, im a BIG FAN of quality sellers and these guys are in my top 5 They answer emails and will help you every step of the way. I bought one and the antenna was broken and they answered immediately and overnighted me a whole new kit at no cost to me., MANY Amazon sellers could learn something from these guys about good customer service