so ive been using an RTL-SDR v3 for about a year now mostly for monitoring aircraft and some HF stuff through the direct sampling mode and its fine for what it is but i keep bumping into the limits especially on HF where the noise floor is just rough. been looking at either the HackRF One or an SDRplay RSP1B and theyre both kind of in the same ballpark price wise depending on where you get them but they feel like really different tools.

the HackRF does TX which is cool in theory but i dont actually need to transmit anything right now, and from what ive read the receiver performance isnt as good as the RSP1B which has better dynamic range and actually has multiple antenna ports for different bands. but the HackRF has that wider tuning range and you can do all kinds of weird stuff with it. the SDRplay software situation also used to be kind of annoying with the proprietary driver thing but i think thats gotten better?

just wondering if anyone has run both or compared them side by side for general shortwave and amateur band monitoring. im running SDR++ mostly, tried gqrx, not really a fan of SDRuno if im honest

had both at the same time for a few months actually. for pure receive the RSP1B isnt even close, the dynamic range difference is noticeable the moment you tune around 40 meters or the AM broadcast band — the HackRF just gets stomped by strong signals nearby. the RSP1B handles that way better. SDRuno has gotten better but i still mostly use it with SDR++ through the sdrplay API and that works fine now, they sorted the driver stuff out a while back.

the HackRF is cool if you want to play around with portapack firmware or do spectrum analysis or mess with signal replay stuff, its more of a hackers tool than a monitoring receiver. if you just want to sit there and listen to shortwave and ham bands the RSP1B will make you happier. thats my take anyway, mileage varies

the direct sampling mode on the v3 dongles is honestly pretty impressive for what it costs but yeah once youve heard a proper HF receiver even a cheap one you cant go back. i went RSP1B route and dont regret it. SDR++ is the right call, SDRuno works but its heavier than it needs to be for just monitoring