Two RSP1A receivers with two HDSDR instances?

[someYguy]

Hi everyone!

I'd like to run two RSP1A receivers, each rado on its own USB port, with HDSDR, using two instances of the program. Can I simply run them from different directories and rename one of the EXTIO files so that it is picked up only by the intended instance of HDSDR? Is it that easy? Has anyone else here done this? Thanks .

[OH2BUA]

I have successfully done that with two different models of RSPs, but not tried with equal models.

73, Jukka

[someYguy]

Hi everyone!

I'd like to run two RSP1A receivers, each rado on its own USB port, with HDSDR, using two instances of the program. Can I simply run them from different directories and rename one of the EXTIO files so that it is picked up only by the intended instance of HDSDR? Is it that easy? Has anyone else here done this? Thanks .

I'm happy to report that this does indeed work as I described above. The RSP1A driver was already installed and so I did not have to reinstall it. Here is what I did:

This assumes that you already have the RSP1A hardware driver installed and working with an existing instance of HDSDR.

1) Connect the second RSP1A receiver to the computer. Each RSP1A is on a separate USB port. Simply wait and allow this second receiver to be recognized by the system.

2) Download a copy of HDSDR directly from the HDSDR website, not from SDRPlay. The SDRPlay version is bundled with the hardware driver and for this we don't want that.

3) Install this 2nd copy of HDSDR in a different directory (folder) than the existing one. I simply renamed the folder during installation. Make note of the name of the installation folder.

4) Place a copy of the file ExtIO_SDRplay_RSP1A.DLL in the new HDSDR folder. I renamed this file so as to avoid confusion but it likely will work fine without renaming because each HDSDR instance uses only the copy of the DLL file which is contained within its own program folder.

5) I suggest renaming one of the HDSDR desktop shortcuts so that you can tell them apart. Maybe even change the icon.

If all goes well, then you're ready! Now run both instances of HDSDR. Each one should now be controlling a separate receiver.

Congratulations! You can now monitor any (2) slices of radio spectrum from 1khz to 2ghz independently, just like an RSPDuo! If your computer has enought resources, you might be able to use the full 10mhz bandwidth on both receivers. I haven't yet tried that but is works great at 5mhz on both here. The machine which I'm using for this is an HP 3.0ghz duo core with 8gb RAM, running Windows 7/64.

I hope this helps anybody who might be interested in doing this.

[someYguy]

One caveat - Because HDSDR uses the Windows registry to store & retrieve settings, the second instance which you start will start with the same settings as those of the first.....

[OH2BUA]

One caveat - Because HDSDR uses the Windows registry to store & retrieve settings, the second instance which you start will start with the same settings as those of the first.....

You can specify different set of setting in the HDSDR command line. Like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\HDSDRplay\HDSDR.exe" "ExtIO_SDRplay_RSPduo.dll" -profile ONE
"C:\Program Files (x86)\HDSDRplay\HDSDR.exe" "ExtIO_SDRplay_RSPduo.dll" -profile TWO

73, Jukka

[someYguy]

One caveat - Because HDSDR uses the Windows registry to store & retrieve settings, the second instance which you start will start with the same settings as those of the first.....

You can specify different set of setting in the HDSDR command line. Like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\HDSDRplay\HDSDR.exe" "ExtIO_SDRplay_RSPduo.dll" -profile ONE
"C:\Program Files (x86)\HDSDRplay\HDSDR.exe" "ExtIO_SDRplay_RSPduo.dll" -profile TWO

73, Jukka

Very good, thanks!