Mirics MSi2500 / MSi3101 USB software-defined radio receivers
A USB software-defined radio frontend chipset from Mirics, paired with the MSi001 tuner, that shipped in early SDR dongles including the original SDRplay RSP1 sold from the mid-2010s until it was discontinued in 2017. Hobbyists used these devices for wideband radio reception across HF/VHF/UHF.
recommendation
Worth keeping but flagging as legacy hardware. The original SDRplay RSP1 was discontinued in 2017 and is no longer supported by SDRplay's own current SDRconnect software, but the kernel code is still actively maintained — it received fixes in 2024 as part of normal media-subsystem cleanups — and remaining owners of the older dongles have no in-tree alternative. A note documenting that this targets pre-2017 Mirics-based SDRs would help future triage.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
The driver still received direct upstream maintenance in 2024 (`media: msi2500: set lock before calling vb2_queue_init()`).
- lore.kernel.org
The driver was also touched by media-subsystem API cleanup work in late 2024, indicating it is still built and maintained rather than abandoned.
- cateee.net
LKDDb associates this Linux support with Mirics/SDRplay-class USB hardware, including vendor/product 1df7:2500 (SDRplay RSP1) and 2040:d300.
- sdrplay.com
SDRplay states the original RSP1 was discontinued in 2017 and replaced by the RSP1A, then by the RSP1B in 2024.
- sdrplay.com
SDRplay's current product lineup in 2025 lists newer products such as RSP1B/RSPdx-R2 and places RSP1 among discontinued products.
- sdrplay.com
SDRplay says the original RSP1, phased out in 2017, cannot be supported by SDRconnect, reinforcing that this is legacy hardware rather than a current-platform target.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local source inspection via shell (`rg`, `sed`) identified this as the Mirics MSi2500 / MSi3101 SDR USB driver and showed it depends on the `msi001` tuner. `lore_file_timeline` on `drivers/media/usb/msi2500/msi2500.c` showed steady 2024-2025 upstream touches, with recent entries being fixes and media API churn, not removal work; regex/path-mention follow-ups timed out, so the lore conclusion is based on the timeline evidence only. Web search found official SDRplay pages showing the original RSP1 is discontinued (2017), newer products are sold instead, and modern SDRconnect does not support the old RSP1. That points to legacy but still-occasionally-used SDR hardware: low present deployment, no clear in-tree replacement for the exact device, and a better fit for `keep-annotate` than deprecate/remove.