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Technical Topics => SDR - Software Defined Radio => Topic started by: IQ_imbalance on September 05, 2014, 0258 UTC

Title: O software gurus...rtl_power and waterfall displays...
Post by: IQ_imbalance on September 05, 2014, 0258 UTC
Could some explain why most RTLSDR software that displays frequency/signal/time data is limited to a couple of MHz in the frequency domain while something like rtl_power can sample across a much larger swath of bandwidth (granted not displaying in real-time)?  I think rtl_power breaks up the sampled frequency into chunks, but is it sampling these simultaneously?  If so...why doesn't software like gqrx let you do that? 
Title: Re: O software gurus...rtl_power and waterfall displays...
Post by: ChrisSmolinski on September 05, 2014, 1052 UTC
It is not simultaneously sampling. The RTL SDRs are limited to a few MHz bandwidth. So it needs to sample one chunk of RF, then another, and so on.
Title: Re: O software gurus...rtl_power and waterfall displays...
Post by: blw on September 09, 2014, 0403 UTC
The Digital Downconverter Chip is one of the major expenses in larger SDRs. The DDC and ADC costs money the faster, wider, and better you go. The RTL 2832u was meant for cheap TV controllers.