so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for a while now mostly just scanning VHF/UHF stuff and occasionally poking around on HF with the direct sampling mode. it works but honestly the direct sampling always felt like kind of a hack to me, images all over the place and the noise floor is pretty rough compared to what people post online.

anyway been thinking about stepping up to an SDRplay RSP1B or maybe the RSPdx and I'm trying to figure out if its actually worth like the $130-150 difference or if I'm just going to end up with a nicer noise floor and the same frustrations. most of what i do is shortwave broadcast, some utility monitoring, occasional WSPR decoding with WSJT-X piped through SDR#. I dont have a particularly great antenna situation, just a long wire out the window about 30 feet or so.

has anyone gone from RTL to SDRplay and actually noticed a big difference on HF specifically? not asking about the HackRF because I know thats a transmit capable thing and thats a different rabbit hole i dont wanna go down right now

yeah the jump from RTL direct sampling to a proper HF receiver like the RSPdx is pretty significant, not gonna sugarcoat it. the dynamic range alone is night and day especially if youre anywhere near a strong AM broadcast station. i run the RSPdx with SDRuno and its honestly pretty solid for shortwave and utility stuff. the 1kHz to 2GHz coverage without needing an upconverter is the main thing for me.

that said your antenna situation is probably going to be the bigger limiting factor honestly. a 30ft long wire out the window is going to pick up a ton of noise depending on where you live. i'd almost say get a better antenna situation sorted first, but if your current setup is already decent and you're just getting frustrated with the dongle limitations then yeah the RSPdx is worth it. SDRuno is a bit clunky compared to SDR# but you get used to it, and it does work well with the RSP hardware natively.

i went RSP1A a couple years back from an RTL dongle and honestly for shortwave listening the difference was real. not like holy cow everything is perfect now but noticeably cleaner and way fewer phantom signals showing up. WSPR decoding especially seemed to get better spots, could be coincidence but i dont think so.

one thing nobody told me is that SDRuno takes some getting used to, the UI is kinda weird. there's also CubicSDR and GQRX if you want to use something other than the official software, both work with the RSP stuff via the API. some people swear by SDR# with a plugin but ive never gotten that working smoothly myself