Review on 📻 Nooelec NESDR Smart v4 SDR: Premium RTL-SDR with Aluminum Enclosure, 0.5PPM TCXO, SMA Input - Software Defined Radio Review by Anthony Shepherd

I have bought several. Unfortunately I was sent a unit that was DOA but they replaced it immediately so thanks to them for the great customer service. Then I ran it through some tests and noticed a few things. It was more sensitive than the RTL-SDR v3 on almost all bands and I was very impressed. until I reached 770MHz. There is a point in the upper part of the 700MHz band where there are many trunked systems that this device is simply deaf to. The device outperformed the RTL-SDR V3 in every respect except for one (to me) important area segment. I had signals that were almost completely attenuated on my other SDR which could barely pick this one up. This happened on both devices, so I figured it was a design limitation. They have been assigned to a VHF trunk system for monitoring and have been working well for a little over 2 years. and now. *sigh*. One of the units failed and was not recognized by any USB port (which was the original failure of the first ones). So 1 failed immediately and the replacement failed after 2 years of moderate use (maybe 100 hours total). There are still plenty of them and if you have to buy a new one every 2 years that's not too bad either, but my next one will be from a different manufacturer. They're great for what they are, but they have some limitations, just keep that in mind.