so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now mostly for aircraft and some HF stuff with the direct sampling mode and honestly its been fine for what it is but im starting to hit the limits of it especially on the lower HF bands where the noise floor just seems really high and i keep missing weaker signals that i know are there because other guys on the local club net are hearing them fine with better setups

anyway i was looking at the SDRplay RSP1A which is like $110 or so and supposedly has way better dynamic range and a proper frontend vs the RTL-SDR which everyone knows is basically a TV tuner chip doing something it wasnt designed for. but then i see people saying you can get a HackRF for not much more and that covers transmit too which the RSP1A doesnt do. i dont really need to transmit from the SDR right now but maybe eventually?

anyone actually compared the RSP1A to an RTL-SDR on like 40m or 80m and noticed a real difference in what you can pull out of the noise? or am i just going to be disappointed either way without a better antenna

the RSP1A is a pretty significant step up from the rtl-sdr dongles on HF, not gonna lie. the 12-bit ADC vs 8-bit makes a noticeable difference in dynamic range and the built in preselector filters actually help a lot on the lower bands where you'd otherwise get all kinds of intermod garbage from strong AM broadcast stations. i run mine with SDRuno and on 40m i can copy stations i would have totally missed before.

that said you're not wrong about antennas being a big part of it. if you're running a short wire or random piece of coax you'll still struggle regardless of the receiver. but assuming your antenna situation is reasonable the RSP1A is genuinely worth the money. the HackRF comparison is kind of apples and oranges tbh, hackrf has a much worse noise figure and only 8-bit too, its more of a do everything device than a good receiver. if youre not actively needing to transmit signals i wouldnt bother with it for monitoring.

had the exact same question last fall and ended up just buying the RSP1A, no regrets. the direct sampling thing on the v3 dongle always felt like a hack to me, works but you can tell. SDRuno took me a little while to figure out but its fine once you get used to it, some people swear by SDR# with the RSP too but i havent tried that combo myself.

80m is where i really noticed the difference, pulling out weak WSPR signals that just werent there before. though honestly one thing nobody mentions enough is the software matters almost as much as the hardware. i messed around with GQRX for a while and it felt like i was leaving performance on the table compared to using software that actually knows about the RSP frontend and can control the gain stages properly.