New SDR dongle received but cannot get it to work

[John]

Hello,

I am new to this list and to SDR radio. I have purchased an SDR dongle 
but am having trougble getting it to work. The dongle was described as 
an RTL8232U/R820T2 device. I am running on Linux MINT version 18.2 and 
lsusb detects the device as follows:

Bus 002 Device 051: ID 0bda:2838 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2838 DVB-T

Is it an RTL2832U or an RTL2838? I'm not really sure.

 From research it seems that It seems like the fist order of business is 
to blacklist the kernel driver? So I have done this by adding a 
backlist-rtl.conf file to /etc/modprobe.d and rebooted the computer. I 
have also added a rules file to /etc/udev/rules.d with the following 
content:

# Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2838 DVB-T
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bda", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2838", 
MODE:="0666", GROUP="adm", SYMLINK+="rtl_sdr"

I can now access the device in user mode without permission errors so I 
assume that this is working OK.

So my next step was to run rtl_test -t. The output I got contained 
errors.If I then try to run any sdr software such as rtl_fm or gqrx, the 
device is reset and the application fails to run. Subsequentlly running 
'rtl_test -t' gives:

No supported devices found.

Even running rtl_test-t sometimes does the same so i'm not sure whether 
the device is 'dropping out' of its own accord.

I am wondering whether the current crop of devices are supported? Or is 
this a configuration problem?


The output from rtl_test:

rtl_test -t
Found 1 device(s):
   0:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
r82xx_write: i2c wr failed=-1 reg=13 len=7
r82xx_write: i2c wr failed=-1 reg=0c len=1
r82xx_init: failed=-1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 
16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 
43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
r82xx_write: i2c wr failed=-1 reg=0a len=1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
WARNING: Failed to set sample rate.
No E4000 tuner found, aborting.
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_write_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_demod_read_reg failed with -1
rtlsdr_write_reg failed with -1



-- 
John