Building a 28.8 MHz TCXO for the RTL-SDR

For accurate frequency tuning even amongst large temperature in an SDR, a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) should be used as the main oscillator.

Standard RTL-SDR dongles used a frequency of 28.8 MHz and do not come with a TCXO, but for some time now we have been selling our own branded dongles that come with a TCXO built in (out of stock at the moment sorry – back in the first half of April!).

If you have an older or other dongle that does not have a TCXO it can be an interesting exercise to hack one in yourself.

The biggest problem though, is that 28.8MHz TCXO oscillators are not commonly found for sale in low quantities.