DVB-T Dongles
Table of Contents

Comparison

rtl-sdr.com "silver" dongle Flight Aware Pro Flight Aware Pro Plus Newgen "green" dongle Thumbnet N3 Cheap dongle R820T / R820T2 Bad dongle (short one)
Price ~20€ (rtl-sdr.com) ~30€ (amazon.de) ~36€ (amazon.de) ~18€ (ebay.de) ~25-33$ ~10€ ~10€
Rating for OGN receiver +++ ++ - / ++ (… read the notes) ??? + + -
dvbt_stick_silver.jpg dvbt_stick_flightaware.jpg dvbt_stick_flightaware_plus.jpg dvbt_stick_green.jpg dvbt_stick_thumbnet.jpg rtl-buy.png rtl-dont-buy.png
Sensitivity good good good ** ??? average good bad
Connector SMA SMA SMA SMA F MCX MCX
Temperature compensated crystal (TCXO) yes yes yes yes yes no no
Aluminium enclosure yes no no yes yes no no
Integrated LNA no yes yes no no no no
Integrated Bias-T yes no no no no no no
Notes The integrated Bias-T makes the stick excellent for usage with amplifier because you do not need additional power supply Integrated filter for 1090MHz which make it useless for OGN.
Expert only**: you can replace the filter with a filter for 868MHz which makes this stick excellent for OGN
??? External 5V DC input Caution: some of these sticks are sold mentioning the tuner R820T or R820T2 but they have the tuner FC0012 inside. The FC0012 is bad for OGN. Regarding R820T vs R820T2: There is no obvious difference in reception. they tend to get hot and crystals drift very much off. If you absolutely need to use them - give them good cooling (remove the casing, etc.):
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