so ive been messing with an RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about six months now and honestly its been pretty great for just learning the landscape, been doing ADSB, some ACARS, poked around the aircraft band a bit, even decoded some NOAA APT passes which was genuinely cool. but im starting to feel the limits of it especially on HF where i have to use the direct sampling mode and it just feels... not quite right? like the noise floor is all over the place and im pretty sure my cheap laptop is not helping things either.

anyway ive been looking at either stepping up to the SDRplay RSP1A which i can get for around $120 or just biting the bullet and getting a HackRF One for like $300-ish. the thing is i dont really have a transmit need right now, im mostly receive only and just want better dynamic range and actually usable HF coverage. the RSP1A seems like the obvious choice for that but then ive read some stuff about the SDRuno software being a bit clunky and im already pretty comfortable with SDR# and CubicSDR.

does the RSP1A actually work with SDR# still? i thought i saw something about a plugin but wasnt sure if it was still maintained. and is the HackRF receive quality actually as mediocre as people say for a $300 device, because that seems like a lot to spend for worse RX than a $120 dedicated receiver

yeah the RSP1A works fine with SDR# through the ExtIO plugin, SDRplay still maintains it as far as i know. SDRuno is actually not bad once you get used to the layout, its kind of modeled after old Sony software radios so it has a certain logic to it, but i totally get preferring SDR# if thats what youre used to.

and yeah you basically answered your own question on the HackRF thing. its a great tool if you need the TX capability or want to do transmit experiments, replay attacks for your own devices, that kind of thing. but as a pure receiver its genuinely worse than the RSP1A on most metrics. the noise figure on the HackRF is pretty bad compared to dedicated rx hardware and it only does 8 bit samples vs the RSP1A doing 12 bit. for HF work especially that difference shows up real fast. id go RSP1A if youre receive focused, save the HackRF money for something else or wait until you actually have a reason to transmit.

I ran a RTL-SDR for probably two years before I moved to an RSP2 and honestly the jump was bigger than I expected, especially on MW and the lower HF bands. The RSP1A is genuinely a solid step up. One thing people dont always mention is that the RSP series has a much better front end with the notch filters and stuff so strong local broadcasters dont trash everything around them the way they can with the dongle in direct sampling mode.

The HackRF comparison is apples and oranges really. Different tool for different jobs. If you just want to listen and explore the bands the RSP1A is a much better fit at that price point. I do occasionally fire up GQRX with mine on Linux and it works fine, SDRuno is actually my preference now but took some getting used to I wont lie.