Just a brief note: this website has some pretty extensive pictures of the inside and outside of the same model of RTLSDR dongle I bought. It also shows that it does not have the ESD protection diodes in place, so it’s possible you could fry the tuner input by having a static discharge directly hit the input on the tuner chip. I’m pondering trying to get some BAV99s and install one anyway, but I also noted that many others are instead recommending getting this model from NooElec instead. They advertise that they use the R820T tuner, and have the ESD antenna protection in place. I do wish they used SMA connectors instead of MCX, but adapters are fairly cheap. I ordered one just to do some comparison testing.

I’ll let you know when it arrives.