Just picked up an SDRplay RSP1A and having some trouble optimizing performance on the HF bands. While the unit excels at pulling extremely weak signals from noise with narrow bandpass filters that act like "brick walls," I'm getting some odd gain staging behavior below 30 MHz.

Specifically, when monitoring 20m CW around 14.070 MHz with modest RF gain settings, I'm seeing what appears to be AGC pumping on very weak signals that should be copyable. The waterfall shows the signals clearly, but audio recovery is inconsistent. Has anyone had success with the Linux support on the RSP1A, particularly with the new SDRplay Connect software currently under development?

Running SDR Console v3.3 on Windows 10. Any thoughts on optimal gain distribution between RF and IF stages for weak signal work?

I've been running an RSP1A for about two years now and had the exact same issue initially. The key is understanding that the RSP1A has quite a bit more dynamic range than most people realize, but you need to set the RF gain much lower than you'd think - try starting around 20-24dB max and adjust from there.

What antenna are you using? I found that on HF, the RSP1A can easily overload from strong broadcast stations if you don't have some front-end filtering. Weak signals may require a preamplifier and filters to reject interference from nearby broadcast stations, especially when dealing with multi-kilowatt mediumwave interference.

SDR Console is definitely professional-grade with capabilities far beyond basic listening, including multiple virtual receivers to monitor many frequencies at once. Have you tried using the built-in notch filters? They work wonders for cleaning up the HF bands when there's local QRM.