USB memory stick sized SDR receiver from Amsat UK for ~$165

[Brian Hawes]

Hi,

The 'FUNCube' dongle arrived this morning, 30 Hours after clicking 'add to basket'. I had it working, and was listening to the London air traffic within twenty minutes of opening the box. Might have been faster if I had read all the instructions first, but they are not packaged with the device, you have to download from the web (see below). Anyway, who reads all the instructions first time?

If you download "An introduction to the FUNcube dongle" and "Setting up Spectraview with the FUNcube dongle" from the 'download' section of:   http://www.funcubedongle.com/    you will get a pretty good idea of what to expect. 

My impressions, (based on just 30 minutes use):

It works with Spectraview, but I haven't tried any other software, yet.

It has only 80KHz  bandwidth. No problem for some modes, a killer for others.

The separate window for controlling the centre frequency and gain etc works, but it can be a pain having to use two windows to get your signal. Perhaps Alberto's software will put all the functions into one package?

The software insists that the set frequency be above 50Mhz. I could pick up a test signal down to 51.5 MHz, but response falls away below that. The full performance down to 52MHz figure is about right.  I have no means of checking the upper limit.

It is USB powered and works equally well on my desktop or on my IBM X31 laptop. It has therefore, real potential  as a portable system. I have the WA5VJB log-periodics for 400-1000 and 900-2600 MHz, so I'll connect them in the next day or two and see what it picks up (If there's anything up there!)

I agree with Alberto: it seems quite sensitive, but would benefit from some pre-selection. This is subjective, not the result of measurement.

It gets slightly warm, no more, so isn't drawing much power.

I hope this doesn't sound too negative. There is a lot of functionality in that little dongle, especially for the price: it extends my SDR capability up to 2GHz for 10% of the price paid for my SDR-14. 

Decision to buy depends on what you want to do with it. The limited bandwidth means that while it is very good for picking up signals when you know the frequency, it is little use for 'band-browsing.' 

Brian
G2KQ


________________________________________
From: tacos-bounces+hawes=herald.ox.ac.uk at amrad.org [tacos-bounces+hawes=herald.ox.ac.uk at amrad.org] On Behalf Of Brian Hawes [brian.hawes at retired.ox.ac.uk]
Sent: 19 August 2011 16:12
To: Mark Whittington; tacos at amrad.org
Subject: RE: USB memory stick sized SDR receiver from Amsat UK for ~$165

USA Customers don't pay V.A.T. That tax is especially for us British.

I ordered one of these receivers this morning. Martin Lynch e-mailed four hours later and confirmed that it has been despatched. Might arrive tomorrow (Saturday) if the post works.

I'll post a quick first impression when I get it.

Brian

________________________________________
From: tacos-bounces+hawes=herald.ox.ac.uk at amrad.org [tacos-bounces+hawes=herald.ox.ac.uk at amrad.org] On Behalf Of Mark Whittington [markwhi at gmail.com]
Sent: 19 August 2011 10:14
To: tacos at amrad.org
Subject: Re: USB memory stick sized SDR receiver from Amsat UK for ~$165

Never mind.  There are two Zone 2 listed -- EC and non-EC.  So it's £99 + £13.16 => £112.16, or ~$186.  Much more sensible.

-Mark

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 9:02 AM, Mark Whittington <markwhi at gmail.com<mailto:markwhi at gmail.com>> wrote:
They can also be ordered directly from the creator here: http://www.funcubedongle.com/?page_id=286

The US is apparently "Zone 2" which means £99 + 20% VAT + £13.16 shipping, for a total of £134.60, or ~$225 USD.

VAT sucks.


On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 5:48 AM, Mark Whittington <markwhi at gmail.com<mailto:markwhi at gmail.com>> wrote:
Called the FUNcube Dongle, covers 64MHz - 1300MHz

http://www.mlands.co.uk/acatalog/AMSAT-UK.html#a4946




_______________________________________________
Tacos mailing list
Tacos at amrad.org
https://amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos