so ive been messing around with a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about 6 months now, mostly just scanning trunked systems in my area and poking around the aircraft band. its fine but i keep hitting its limitations, especially anything above like 1.7 GHz without the upconverter, and the noise floor is just kind of depressing once you know what you're looking at.

been going back and forth between picking up an SDRplay RSP1A or just biting the bullet and getting a HackRF One. the price gap isnt huge but its not nothing either. main thing im trying to figure out is whether the HackRF's transmit capability is actually useful for anything practical or if its mostly just cool on paper. i dont have a license yet so i cant actually transmit legally but im studying for the tech exam right now.

also wondering about the SDRuno software that comes with the RSP1A - does it actually work well or is everyone just using SDR# or GQRX anyway? i run linux about 60% of the time so that factors in too.

had both at the same time for a while and honestly they serve pretty different purposes. the RSP1A is just a better receiver, cleaner noise floor, wider tuning range down to like 1 kHz if you care about that stuff, and the 10 MHz bandwidth is real bandwidth not the stretched kind you get trying to push a dongle. if you just want to receive and explore the spectrum its the better tool.

HackRF is more of a Swiss army knife but the receive side is honestly not that impressive compared to a decent SDR receiver. the ADC resolution is lower and you feel it. where it shines is if you actually want to do SDR development, replay attacks for testing your own stuff, or eventually transmit when you get your ticket. the 20 MHz bandwidth is genuinely useful for wideband stuff though.

on SDRuno - its windows only and it's... fine. it works, the noise reduction stuff is decent, but yeah most people on linux just use GQRX or SDR++ which honestly i prefer even on windows now. SDR++ has come a long way and supports the RSP1A just fine through the soapysdr layer.

get the license first then decide, because what you want to do matters a lot here. i spent way too long with receive-only gear and then realized transmit changes how you think about all of it. that said the RSP1A is genuinely a nice little box and im not sure the HackRF would've taught me as much on the receive side early on. the sensitivity difference is noticeable especially if you're trying to pull in weak signals.