[hpsdr] USB FunCube VHF/UHF and Low Microwave receiver

[ChrisGW6KZZ at aol.com]

Hi  everyone,
 
Just wanted  to forward some breaking news on Howard Long G6LVB and his 
project to make  an educational FUNCube receiver for the AMSAT-UK satellite 
under  construction.
 
Like the  HPSDR project I am very interested in developing my own version, 
I also have  great interest in Orbiting Satellites Carrying Amateur Radio 
(OSCAR). Howard  G6LVB recently created the start of the compact USB VHF/UHF 
and low Microwave  band receiver. Below is the AMSAT-BB text and links to 
both Howard's FUNcube  Dongle dedicated website and a YouTube video to show how 
his prototype is made  and working...well done Howard, very impressive, 
this receiver will have  lots of other potential uses to both academic students 
and radio amateurs  too.
 
FUNCube  Dongle

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-290.03
FUNCube Dongle Development  Status

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 290.03
>From AMSAT HQ SILVER  SPRING, MD.
October 17, 2010
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID:  $ANS-290.03

Howard Long, G6LVB, reports that he is enormously gratified  by the large 
volume
of interest shown the FUNcube Dongle over the past few  weeks. With so much
interest being shown, Howard took some time to provide an  update about the
development progress.

The FUNCube Dongle was  originally designed to be an accessible way to be 
able to
receive amateur  satellites, most notably AMSAT-UK's forthcoming  FUNcube 
cubesat
(http://www.funcube.org.uk). What does accessible mean?  Essentially we mean
both low cost and easy to setup. The original target  market is, and 
remains,
what Howard calls, "the unconverted", those,  particularly in education, 
who need
a means of being able to practically  introduce and demonstrate real space
technology in a hands-on  way.

When the work on FUNcube was distributed, Howard was given the task  of 
coming up
with the ground segment, and the result is the FUNcube  Dongle.

As it's tuned out, the FUNcube Dongle has the added bonus that  it's a
VHF/UHF and low microwave equivalent to the well-known Softrock in  an
integrated plug and play package. The intention is to have two models,  an
entry-level frequency-restricted version targeted at the educational  
market,
and a full blown Pro version that seems to piqued the interest of  many 
radio
amateurs, radio astronomers and short wave listeners.

In  précis, it includes an integrated front end filter, LNA, quatrature  LO,
zero-IF quadrature downconverter, dual 16 bit ADC and USB soundcard. In  
it's
simplest of forms, it's SMA in, USB out. It's also compatible with  pretty
much any software that works for the Softrock, for example  LinRad,
Spectravue, M0KGK and Rocky.

The passband is 96kHz, tuneable  from 64MHz to 1,700MHz. The tuning is via a
USB HID interface meaning that as  well as your favourite soundcard SDR
program, you'll need a little app  supplied with the FUNcube Dongle to
control the centre frequency or you'll  end up only listening to Howard's
favorite FM broadcast station  ;-)

It's also compatible with XP, Vista , Windows 7 in 32 bit and Vista  and
Windows 7 in 64 bit. Initial testing on the Mac and Ubuntu 32 and 64  bit
shows compatibility too, however the frequency control
application for  those platforms has not been written yet.

So, no USB drivers are  required!

To keep people informed going forward, a blog has been  established at:
http://www.funcubedongle.com/.

Also there's a video of  the first pre-production unit  at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzTBPLqal0

Projected availability  of the first production batch of the Pro version is
December 2010. Pricing is  subject to assembly costs, but to give you
indicative pricing we are working  on an initial price of the Pro version to
be circa USD150/GBP100.

[ANS  thanks Howard, G6LVB, for the above information]

/EX


Best  regards, 
73's, Chris GW6KZZ

Member of AMSAT-UK, RSGB &  TAPR
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openhpsdr.org/pipermail/hpsdr-openhpsdr.org/attachments/20101017/450a49a0/attachment-0003.htm>