I'm not sure where "getting started on Ham radio" got into the picture?

FWIW, if you WANT to get into HF radio with RTL-SDR get an upconverter,
it'll map the HF radio region into something the RTL-SDR dongles can
hear.

Yes, the RTL-SDR dongles don't have the best sensitivity, but they
certainly don't "only receive strong local stations" in my experience.

Maybe you had some bad hardware when you tried them?

On Wed, 2014-09-24 at 13:38 -0400, Jean-Paul Louis wrote:
> RTL-SDR is the worst device to get started on ham radio. people gloat abo=
ut it, but this device was never intended for HF radio but for TV, so range=
 starts at about 50MHz and goes to 1GHz.
> Sensitivity is horrible because the A/D converter is only 8-10 bits, so t=
he full range is less than 60dB, so you will receive only strong local stat=
ion (FM) or similar.
> It is good to experiment, but I would not recommend for beginner on SDR.
> A single band Softrock and a PC with stereo sound card input is way bette=
r to get a feel about SDR.
> for low cost entry do the SDR World, nothing can beat the products of Ton=
y Park at Fivedash.
>=20
> My $0.02
>=20
> 73 de Jean-Paul
> AC9GH
>=20
> On Sep 24, 2014, at 12:14 PM, Herbert Graf <hkgraf@gmail.com> wrote:
>=20
> > HackRF, while very capable, was just to expensive for me ($300).
> >=20
> > Look up RTL-SDR, you can get a dongle for ~$25. Only receives, and has
> > loads of other limitations (the range is only 30MHz-~1700MHz, but
> > frankly there isn't much that much to see on the high end of things),
> > but a great way to get started.
> >=20
> > TTYL
> >=20
> > On Wed, 2014-09-24 at 13:59 +0800, Justin Richards wrote:
> >> I suspect this has mentioned before but I may not have been paying
> >> attention.
> >>=20
> >> http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/
> >>=20
> >> "This ongoing video series will be a complete course in Software Defin=
ed
> >> Radio (SDR). In this course, you'll build flexible SDR applications us=
ing
> >> GNU Radio through exercises that will help you learn the fundamentals =
of
> >> Digital Signal Processing (DSP) needed to master SDR. For the over-the=
-air
> >> exercises, you'll need a HackRF One or other SDR peripheral."
> >>=20
> >> Justin
> >=20
> >=20
> > --=20
> > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> > View/change your membership options at
> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
>=20
>=20


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