Ham It Up v1.3 Barebones - Nooelec RF Upconverter For Software Defined Radio. Works With Most SDRs Like HackRF & RTL-SDR (RTL2832U with E4000, FC0013 or R820T Tuners); MF/HF Converter With SMA Jacks

I am fully licensed as a radio amateur, but for just receiving 0-30MHz this is a great product. What it does is basically gives you an intermediate signal at 125MHz to pass to realtek dongle which was originally designed for TV via USB reception, but using freely available software you can make this dongle receive around 24MHz to 1700MHz, so clearly, to get frequencies below 24MHz you need to add the upconverter which can receive below 30MHz and present it to the USB dongle at 125MHz, (well away from broadcast commercial radio). With the two items together you have a software defined receiver that goes from 0-1700Mhz in all modes provided by such free software as SDR# (sdr sharp)I did have a small problem to start with, the main crystal was totally missing from my order, for reasons unknown it is not plugged into the board by the seller, but a couple of emails and a bit of waiting had the missing crystal sent to me from USA. I plugged it into the socket on board and it worked fine. It requires a USB A to B connector to power it, this is not included with the board. A neat little switch allows passthrough to allow direct access to your USB realtek dongle which is handy should you wish to use 1090MHz aircraft virtual radar software which shows real time aircraft info on windows PC, again this is free software!The main aerial connectors are SMA, which I bought adapters for because SMA is difficult to connect to coaxial cables, and am now planning on fitting all the bits into one metal box for ease of use. The future of radio really will be software defined, since this requires far less hardware and has so many possibilities that your standard radios just can't do unless you pay thousands of pounds. My whole setup has cost around £50, so for a very capable receiver and signal analyser, why would anyone do it another way? 0-1700MHz is a massive range, and for the money can't be beaten. Making all this work requires only a very basic understanding of electronics, it is more like making Lego fit together than anything, and I'm very impressed with the quality of this item. Delivery is reasonable, around a couple of weeks so all good if you are not in a rush.

Using connected to a RTL-SDR Realtek RTL2832U R820T mini USB dongle and GQRX software built on MacOSX Mavericks via MacPorts. If you previously dabbled with this software you just add minus 125MHz in the right box: ie put "-125.000000 MHz" into the "LNB LO" field in the "Configure I/O devices" sub panel and then frequencies displayed are automatically corrected (you can do more accurate calibration later).All together this set up performs well considering I don't have a significant SW antennae. Its good enough for a casual user exploring SW signals on a computer.Ordered the NooElec Extruded Aluminum Enclosure Kit, Blue from NooElec at the same time to save messing about, a good decision I think as it is the best way of preventing PCB damage and accidental shorts but also shields from any stray RF. Both items arrived in one package in just over a week without gathering additional charges; lucky me. Thank you.The crystal was already in place in the socket.Input RF and output are both female SMA connectors.Was also going to get the equivalent adapters direct from NooElec but these proved to be available a bit cheaper and quicker here:SMA-m to MCX-m and SMA-m to BNC-fYou will need a USB cable for power, I use one from an old printer connected to a desk based power only hub. Seems to draw only about 20 mA in use so you could use a socket on your computer if pushed.Pleased with the performance and strongly recommend getting the blue metal box at the same time (add both to basket, then buy).

This is an excellent upconverter and great value at the current selling price of £38. I particularly like the way RF passthrough is implemented using electronic switches - this opens up the possibility to have the upconverter near the aerial and remotely switch the upconverter in- or out- of the signal chain.Including the broadband noise source adds great value. Beware though if you connect direct to the antenna input of a receiver - the schematic shows a pi- attenuator on the noise output, but this is *not* implemented on the actual hardware, so no protection against overloading, and also there's more likelihood of passband ripple due to any impedance match not being reduced by buffering.

1st class board works well and well built. but delivery very slow, sent via Royal Mail.