What You See Is What You Get
First, obviously, it is an SDR with a frequency span of 192 kHz and a waterfall display. Frequency is displayed to a precision of 1 Hz
Most radios have settings buried in menus or underneath buttons. That’s not the case here. There are only two functions off the main screen and they are a numeric keypad for entering the frequency and one for entering the time. There are no hidden options or settings. Perhaps that is why the Quick Start Guide just details the display and the connectors on the sides.
After a little use it becomes obvious how primitive the software is that defines the radio.
The Other Elephant in the Room
There is a product from Deepelec called the DeepSDR 101, released in 2022. While nothing on my device’s labeling, packaging or documentation says “Deep,” the product on Banggood does say DeepSDR V6. My V6 appears visually to be the same with the single exception of the antenna connector, SMA rather than BNC. In fact, some product descriptions of the SDR V6 (sometimes even called the DeepSDR V6) are copied from the DeepSDR 101, even to the incorrect BNC antenna connector. I’ve referenced the original DeepSDR 101 manual, and haven’t found any difference.
I want to give credit to one Amazon seller I just found that not only doesn’t say “Deep,” but also doesn’t double the price. They further describe the battery capacity as 3000 mAh rather than 5000 mAh.
It comes in pink?
The Good
There are two notably good surprises. The first is that it supports-C USB fast charging. I have very few devices, particularly not radios, that consume USB-C fast charging. Check my article Charging Radios – USB-C for a long list that can’t. The SDR comes with the common USB-A to USB-C charging cable, but an end-to-end USB-C cable on a fast charge supply works just as well.
The other good thing is also related to charging. This SDR can charge other devices, and the one that leaps to mind is the MLA-30+ antenna. Just hook a USB-Mini cable to the 5V OUT port on the SDR and you’re ready to go. I did find the USB-A port stiff but I got it in.
I think the hardware in general is good. The case is aluminum alloy on all sides and says “quality.” Likewise the encoder knob appears to be metal. There’s a neat block diagram on the back of the case:
On the positive side, Single Sideband is supported, plus CW, and there’s stereo FM also. Air band is covered, or more specifically VHF up to 149 MHz.
The Bad
I have two mechanical nits to pick. The USB-A 5V Out port was very difficult to plug into, and the encoder appears to run backwards (a common flaw on radios of this genre).
The big problems are performance and feature-poor software. Mine has no user manual, and one must rely on the DeepDSR 101 product manual for insights.
There appears to be no DSP chip and pretty much everything is handled by software in the MCU, and that software seems primitive and not that well designed.
One could imagine all sorts of things possible with the display, for example clicking on a signal on the display and tuning to it, only that doesn’t happen. One could imagine wanting to listen to FM signals on CB, but the firmware doesn’t support narrow FM. The bandwidth on FM is 192 kHz — that’s 19 CB channels!
One could imagine wanting to tune the MW band in some parts of the world with a 9 kHz step, or shortwave with a 5 kHz step; neither are implemented. One could imagine clicking on the IF Gain control and being able to change it with the encoder knob, but oner has to hold in the knob and advance it a many as 2o times to reach the setting.
Bandwidths are fixed by modulation type: 9 kHz for AM, 192 kHz for FM, 800 for CW and 2.6 kHz for SSB. Bandwidth is solely a firmware function, but there aren’t any user settings.
Many SDR consoles have noise limiting features, but not this one.
What really bugs me about this SDR is that I seem to have to make settings for every thing I tune, specifically the IF Gain. Signals are either too weak, or severely overloaded. That’s something for the AGC to handle, but the AGC on this SDR seems to skew all the way towards overload, so I mostly turn it off.
I will admit that my testing has been mostly to go after one target of one type and then on to something else. I haven’t been digging into a single band. When I did that (see section on SSB) I found it not quite as annoying.
Google AI said:
An IQ signal in radio frequency (RF) processing is a pair of baseband signals representing the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of a radio wave, used to define amplitude and phase. Q is out of phase with I, acting as the real and imaginary parts of a complex signal. It enables efficient modulation/demodulation in SDRs, Wi-Fi, and LTE.
There is an I/O demodulation mode. It’s not clear where the output goes or what one could use it for. The USB doesn’t seem to be a device, and I’m skeptical about the earphone jack supporting 192 kHz bandwidth, but since the speaker sounds it out, it’s almost certainly on the earphone channel.
Remediation: a Firmware Upgrade?
There is a firmware upgrade path for the official DeepSDR 101, but Deepelec says:
Recently, we found that there are DeepSDR 101 V1 clones for sale on the Internet. This is not authorized by our DEEPELEC, and the cloned products cannot be upgraded to the latest firmware.
Firmware updates are supposedly accomplished by connecting the device to the computer using the USB-C cable and then powering on the device while holding down the encoder wheel. Unfortunately, Windows does not recognize the device and following the instructions does not create a drive on the PC.
Testing
Since one of this radio’s features is SSB, I wanted to try that. Here’s a tiny video of SSB reception.
Once I discovered that the radio was about 100 Hz off I just added that to the frequency and then stepped 1000 kHz thereafter for good signals. I could find stations on the display. So listening to hams on SSB really wasn’t bad.
FM worked OK but I didn’t spend much time on it. MW with an outdoor antenna badly overloaded causing spurious reception on both LW and MW.
What’s it for?
The Amazon seller suggested
Application Scenarios: (as follows)
- Amateur radio (HAM) communication
- Shortwave broadcast reception and monitoring
- Aviation band monitoring
- Outdoor exploration and communication
- Radio teaching and experiments
Buy this radio?
It appears to be a clone of an abandoned product. It’s frustrating to use. Having the tuning knob and the volume control being the same thing, and multiple presses of the knob to switch between functions got old very quickly. With all that screen space, there should be direct access to things like I see with the DP-666 radios or the ATS 25s.
It looks solid with its aluminum alloy case, but hand placement makes a difference in reception
It’s not firmware upgradeable. Too many features are missing to make it a credible general purpose shortwave radio. AGC was supposedly improved in firmware 1.0.1, but that’s no good for this clone unit. It’s a cautionary tale about buying clones.
It’s pretty and solid. Maybe it works for “radio teaching and experiments.” I’m not a low-level electronics experimenter, so no real use for me.
Not recommended.
Learn More
One source of information is the group at https://groups.io/g/deepelec/topic/99085023#msg126
