The Radio Today guide to the Malahit DSP2 receiver (Radio Today guides) by Andrew Barron

The Malahit DSP2 is a neat little Russian designed and Chinese manufactured SDR receiver. It is very well made and completely self-contained with a 3.5" SDR touchscreen, a speaker, and a built-in battery. Unlike many cheap SDR receivers, the DSP2 has a metal case and good RF shielding. The book includes sections about the scanning function and connection to an external SDR or digital modes programs that are not covered in the supplied manual. There are also sections about receiving L-Band satellites, DMR, NOAA weather images, ACARS aircraft data, and POCSAG paging signals. Several things caught my attention. Firstly, the radio has a full colour SDR touchscreen bandscope display. Secondly, unlike the Icom, it is very portable making it ideal for plane spotters, and for use while walking or on holiday. It comes with a simple extendable whip antenna which is surprisingly effective even on the HF bands. The third highlight was the wide receiver coverage from 10 kHz to 380 MHz and 403.3 MHz to 2 GHz. Unlike ‘dongle,’ and ‘black box’ SDR receivers the DSP2 is completely self-contained. It has a built-in speaker and battery, and no computer connection is required. There are heaps of other interesting features. Is this radio a serious contender, or does it fail to meet the grade?