Since Marco Polo, combinations of Italian and Chinese had proven fruitful. The Dragonfly RX-666 is such a combination or, at least, a very special “kind of”. It is a 16bit SDR, ranging 1 kHz to 30 MHz in a row with 16 bit resolution – plus some extra above 32MHz (1.5/1.7GHz) by the help of an R820T2-chip of RTL-SDR fame, but 8 bit only. Priced not much over US-$ 200 (if that) at some ebay sellers, it is a real gamechanger, offering for the first time 32 MHz streaming via USB3.0 at 16 bit resolution to ensure a competitive dynamic range.

It has been built around LTC2208 chip and seems a clone, a twin or a pirate piece of a concept, literally layed/laid out by Oscar Steila, IK1XPV, an electronics engineer from Turin…