so ive been running an RTL-SDR v3 for like two years now and its been great for getting into this stuff but im starting to feel the limits of it especially on HF, yeah i know you can do direct sampling but its just not the same. anyway im trying to decide between picking up an SDRplay RSP1B or just going full send on a HackRF One and i cant quite figure out which makes more sense for what i do.

mostly i just monitor a wide range of stuff, some aircraft ADSB which the RTL handles fine already, some utility stuff on HF, maybe poking around the ham bands when im not actually transmitting. i dont need to transmit with the SDR itself so the HackRF's TX capability isnt really a selling point for me. the thing that has me leaning RSP1B is the noise floor spec but then again HackRF covers such a ridiculous frequency range. does anyone actually use the HackRF above like 2 GHz regularly or is that mostly a selling point on paper

also what software are people pairing with these these days, im mostly on SDR# right now but ive been curious about SDRangel and whether its worth the learning curve

had both at the same time for a while actually. the HackRF is a fun toy but if youre not transmitting and you care about receive quality on HF the RSP1B just walks all over it. the noise floor difference is pretty noticeable when youre trying to pull weak signals, HackRF isnt terrible but its clearly not optimized for sensitivity the way the SDRplay is. i ended up keeping the HackRF mostly for the frequency agility, like when i want to look at something weird above a gig or do some replay stuff but for actual listening the SDRplay is what i reach for.

SDRangel is worth it imo but budget a weekend to get comfortable with it, the interface is not immediately obvious and the documentation is... uneven. once it clicks though its really powerful, the built in demodulators and the way you can stack multiple receivers on one device is hard to go back from. still use SDR# for quick and dirty stuff because it just opens fast

the HackRF above 2 GHz is kinda rough honestly, like yes it technically works but the sensitivity drops off pretty significantly and youre fighting a lot of noise. i tried doing some 2.4 GHz band monitoring with mine and it was usable but not impressive. for what you're describing i'd probably just get the RSP1B and call it done, especially since you already have the RTL for ADSB.