so ive been messing around with an RTL-SDR v3 for about a year now and im pretty happy with it for most stuff, ADS-B, weather sat, poking around the ham bands, whatever. but i keep running into the dynamic range wall especially when im near strong broadcast FM and theres a bunch of birdies all over the place that i cant seem to get rid of no matter what i do with the gain settings in SDR# or even trying gqrx on linux.

anyway i started looking at upgrading and now im kind of stuck between the SDRplay RSP1A and a HackRF One. the price difference isnt massive but its not nothing either. the HackRF does TX which sounds cool but im already licensed and i have real radios for that so i dont know if i actually need it. the RSP1A spec sheet looks way more impressive on paper for receive — 12 bit ADC vs the 8 bit on the hackrf, better noise figure, hardware notch filters. but i dont really know how much of that translates to real world difference sitting at my desk tuning around.

anyone actually used both or switched from one to the other? im mostly doing HF monitoring with an upconverter right now and some VHF/UHF stuff, not any serious TX experiments. just want cleaner receive honestly.

had both at the same time for a while and honestly for pure RX the RSP1A isnt even close, its noticeably cleaner especially on HF. the HackRF is a great tool if you want to do signal analysis or transmit experiments but the receive performance is kinda mediocre, everyone who uses one seriously knows this. the 8bit ADC really does hurt when youve got strong signals nearby. i was running mine with SDRangel and even with good filtering in software you can just tell the noise floor is higher.

if you already have a real radio for TX just get the RSP1A and dont look back. the SDRuno software that comes with it is a bit clunky but it works, and it plays nice with other stuff like HDSDR too. also the built in notch for MW and FM broadcast is genuinely useful, not just a spec sheet checkbox.

yeah the dynamic range thing with the dongle is real and once you notice it you cant un-notice it. i went RSP2 route myself which is a step up from the RSP1A with the extra antenna ports but probably overkill for what youre describing. one thing nobody mentions though — if youre on HF with an upconverter the whole chain matters, a crappy upconverter will limit you regardless of what SDR you plug into it. are you using the direct sampling mod on the v3? that at least gets rid of the upconverter in the equation even if the performance isnt amazing.

also worth trying SDR++ if you havent, its way lighter than SDR# and the plugin system is cleaner. might squeeze a bit more usability out of the dongle before you commit to spending more money.