SDRTrunk 4 RTL-SDR Dongles at Once!

SDRTrunk scanning both a Motorola Simulcast Trunking system and a Harris Simulcast Trunking system. One system is VHF and one is 800MHz so four RTL-SDR dongles were used to capture all the system channels.
Unlike a scanner SDRTrunk will receive all traffic from a site that is within the bandwidth limit of the SDRs plugged in. You will notice that there are two voices at some times. One talkgroup on the right speaker and one on the left.
Computer Setup
Dell Optiplex 790
Intel i5 3.2GHz
4 GB Ram - Soon to be upgraded to 8GB
4 RTL SDR Dongles
More SDRTrunk videos to come.

[@systech911]

I love my sdrtrunk scanner as well.

[@mikebee969]

That’s awesome

[@DBruno]

Thanks for sharing! I'm running two and will add a few more. I'll need to add a pre amp though I think. How did you get the alias to work? Maybe just an area thing?

[@smokey136]

Great video, I was wondering your antenna setup for those SDRs. I have 2 connected to a dual band tram base antenna, but don’t get that great of a signal on the 700 or 800mghz band. Thanks

[@RadioGeek]

These are just split all using Amazon SMA Y cables into a Mag Mount with a Larson Triband scanner antenna. The setup is really close to the VHF site and about 10 miles from the 800 site.

[@morejelloplease]

do the dongles deal with simulcast distortion well and do you need 2 dongles to properly decode this? or 4 to get multiple voice channels with a stereo feed? i'm looking to monitor 1 p25 simulcast system and i'd like to hear a few TGID's at the same time

[@RadioGeek]

It can record several talkgroups at once, if your computer can handle it and the frequencies are all close to each other you could record all the talkgroups at once using one or two dongles. The software can only play two at a time, stereo, however using a program like trunk recorder you can listen to all the recordings as they come out in a web interface.

[@morejelloplease]

@@RadioGeek thanks, I bought an airspy and have had problems and with their customer service. Sdrtrunk keeps crashing also for many users. I'm looking for a better sdr now, I only have windows machines.

[@RadioGeek]

I have had issues with the newer releases, I am using Alpha 6 with no issues. The program is semi-resource heavy so the computer needs some good amount of RAM and processing power. I have several of these running 24/7 on windows machines.

[@morejelloplease]

@@RadioGeek link to alpha 6?

[@morejelloplease]

you talking about the version of sdrtrunk or an sdr dongle called alpha6?

[@nol_yaw]

can i ask you if i wanted to listen to these frequencies 152.6825c 152.7125c 161.875 162.000 and then my next site 152.8175c 161.800 would 2 dongles be enough. i'm thinking about getting a third one just don't know if i would need it. thanks

[@RadioGeek]

In theory yes, each dongle will handle about 2.4 MHz of bandwidth. So one will hear all the 152MHz traffic and one will hear all the 161/162 traffic.

[@terry4241]

Clermont county