Buying guide
SDR-Receiver works with nine families of USB receiver, from a €12 dongle to a flagship transceiver. They are not interchangeable: what a radio can hear decides which decoders you can use. This page lists what each one covers in the app, and what that rules in and out.
Every frequency range and bandwidth below is what SDR-Receiver publishes for that device, which is not always the number on the box. Where the two differ, the app's figure is the one you will see on screen. Prices are indicative EU retail.
Eight-bit dongles. The dynamic range is modest, but a large share of the decoders in SDR-Receiver need nothing more.
~€40
Buy this if you want the best budget dongle. Built-in HF upconverter, 1 ppm TCXO, bias-T and broadcast notch filters. The app recognises the V4 and publishes the whole range with no setting to change.
Watch out: end of line in 2026 — the tuner stockpile is exhausted. The 500 kHz floor also means no LF time signals: DCF77, MSF, WWVB and JJY all sit below it.
~€30
Buy this if you want the cheapest credible route to shortwave, and the only dongle at this price that reaches the LF time stations.
Watch out: the two ranges are neither contiguous nor automatic. Direct Sampling is a setting in Receiver Settings, and switching it on bypasses the tuner — you get 0–14.4 MHz instead of VHF and UHF, with a gap at 14.4–24 MHz. Nothing above the 20 m band either way.
~€40
Buy this if the V4 is sold out. TCXO, SMA connector and decent filtering make it the mainstream pick.
Watch out: no HF at all below 24 MHz, and no direct-sampling circuit to add it.
~€12
Buy this if you want a throwaway second receiver, or a spare dedicated to ADS-B.
Watch out: no TCXO, so it drifts as it warms up, and the shielding is poor. Not recommended as a first device.
SDR-Receiver reads the tuner chip when a stick is opened rather than assuming an R820T, so E4000, FC0012, FC0013 and FC2580 dongles each publish their own range. An unrecognised tuner falls back to direct sampling and appears as a 0–14.4 MHz device.
Twelve-bit converters and far better front ends. This is where strong nearby stations stop spoiling everything else.
~€190
Buy this if you mostly listen to shortwave. It is the best price-to-performance on this page: it survives strong broadcast signals that swamp a cheap dongle, reaches the LF time stations, and its VHF band still covers FM and RDS, ACARS, APRS and AIS.
Watch out: narrow bandwidth, the 31–60 MHz gap is not tunable, and 1090 MHz is far above its ceiling — no ADS-B.
~€110
Buy this if you work VHF and UHF on a budget — scanning, ADS-B, FM and RDS — and want to be clearly above RTL-SDR.
Watch out: no HF.
~€190
Buy this if you want the Mini with a wider capture, to watch a whole band at once.
Watch out: no HF, and the Mini is better value unless you genuinely need the bandwidth.
SDR-Receiver is receive-only and never transmits. These boards are listed for how well they receive.
~€435
Buy this if you need 6 GHz reach and transmit capability in other software. Built-in TCXO, flatter response, and the DC spike of the One is finally gone.
Watch out: still 8-bit — as a pure receiver it is beaten by a €110 Airspy Mini. SDR-Receiver publishes one range for every HackRF, so the Pro's 100 kHz low end is not reachable here; it starts at 1 MHz like the One.
~€300–350
Buy this if you want the budget alternative to the Pro, with a huge community and plenty of tooling behind it.
Watch out: 8-bit, half-duplex, no TCXO and a notorious DC spike. It is a transmitter that also receives, not a good receiver.
~€230
Buy this if you work in GNU Radio, do development, or chase QO-100.
Watch out: not an HF receiver, and the 325 MHz floor also puts FM and RDS, ACARS, APRS and AIS out of reach. It presents as a network device rather than a plain USB radio.
~€230
Buy this if you want two transmit and two receive channels, and a 70 MHz low end for other software. Tested with SDR-Receiver.
Watch out: a third-party board, not an Analog Devices product, with community firmware support. SDR-Receiver publishes the stock 325–3800 MHz range for every Pluto, so the wider coverage is not reachable in the app today and the same VHF gap applies.
Purpose-built hardware, where the front end rather than the software sets the limit.
~€180
Buy this if you want satellite and narrowband work in a pocket-sized stick — the classic amateur-satellite dongle, restocked in February 2026.
Watch out: very narrow bandwidth, and the 240–420 MHz gap is not tunable. No ADS-B — 192 kHz is far too narrow. It reaches TDF at 162 kHz but not the 40–77.5 kHz time stations. It enumerates as a sound card.
~€900
Buy this if you are serious about HF DXing and band recording. Still a benchmark receiver after fifteen years, and it reaches every LF time station.
Watch out: HF only — nothing above 40 MHz, so every VHF and UHF decoder is out. Proprietary driver, historically Windows-centric.
~€6700
Buy this if you want a flagship HF station with SDR-Receiver as its decoding front end. Main and Sub each keep their own tuning, so you can move between two bands without retuning either.
Watch out: a 200 W transceiver, not a receiver — you are buying a complete station. HF and 6 m only, so every VHF and UHF decoder is out, and the I/Q port streams one of the two receivers at a time. Connect the RF deck's rear USB port, not the control head's.
~€2700–3000
Buy this if you want a real radio rather than a dongle. It is the only device here that works without a computer — a full standalone receiver with its own display and decoders, where the app becomes an optional add-on. It is also the one device that can feed every decoder in SDR-Receiver, from the LF time stations to ADS-B.
Watch out: the price.
HackRF's wide range makes it look like the obvious best device, and it is the most common first-purchase regret. At 8 bits its receive dynamic range is roughly that of a €40 dongle: one strong broadcast station nearby will desensitise it right across the band. For receiving only, an Airspy Mini outperforms it at a quarter of the price.
Every mode named here is a decoder in SDR-Receiver today.
DCF77 at 77.5 kHz, MSF and WWVB at 60 kHz, JJY at 40 and 60 kHz, TDF at 162 kHz
Needs coverage below 200 kHz
Use Airspy HF+ Discovery · Perseus · IC-R8600 · IC-7760 · Blog V3 with Direct Sampling
Not Blog V4 or NESDR. FUNcube Pro+ reaches TDF only.
CW, RTTY, NAVTEX, DSC, FT8, FT4, WSPR, SSTV, HF Fax, ALE
Needs coverage from about 1.6 to 30 MHz
Use Blog V4 · Airspy HF+ Discovery · FUNcube Pro+ · Perseus · IC-R8600 · IC-7760 · HackRF, with 8-bit limits
Not NESDR, generic dongles, Airspy Mini or R2, Pluto. A Blog V3 in Direct Sampling reaches 20 m but no higher.
APRS, AIS, POCSAG, ACARS, RDS
Needs about 200 kHz somewhere between 88 and 470 MHz
Use any RTL-SDR · Airspy Mini and R2 · Airspy HF+ Discovery · FUNcube Pro+ · HackRF · IC-R8600
Not Perseus or IC-7760, which stop below 60 MHz, and not Pluto or PLUTO+, which start at 325 MHz.
Aircraft positions on the map, at 1090 MHz
Needs at least 2 MHz of bandwidth and 1090 MHz coverage
Use any RTL-SDR · Airspy Mini and R2 · HackRF · Pluto and PLUTO+ · IC-R8600
Not Airspy HF+ Discovery, which stops at 260 MHz, and not FUNcube Pro+, whose 192 kHz is far too narrow.
Channels A and B at once, around 162 MHz
Needs about 83 kHz around 162 MHz
Use every device that reaches 162 MHz at all — the bandwidth bar is low enough that no supported receiver fails it
Not Perseus, IC-7760 or Pluto, which do not reach 162 MHz.
Live transcribe and translate, FM radio text, everyday listening
Needs whatever band the station is on
Use any supported device
Ranges verified against the app sources on 20 September 2026.
macOS 26 or later, and any of the receivers above.
