FUNcube Dongle PRO+

Ever since I got my FUNCube Dongle Pro last Christmas it has been the main focus of my radio experimentation. I have used it on a number of computers including some quite old not very powerful machines and with different software applications primarily the SDR-Radio and HDSDR suites.

It was a little fiddly to initially set up but I have been impressed with its performance, it has opened my eyes and ears to what is out there on VHF and UHF, much more than I could ever monitor using my scanner receivers. Have a look at my previous postings.

Being SDR, with all decoding being done in software, it is effectively capable of all modes capable with the added advantage of having a variable bandwidth which is useful for data modes.

I have decoded images broadcast from orbit, received transmissions relayed via satellite and even bounced off the surface of the moon! As well as listening to all manner of terrestrial broadcasts.

In a word it is BRILLIANT.

It has its faults, or should I say limitations. It would be nice to have more of the spectrum available at one time and the front end filtering and rejection is troublesome at times. However this is more than made up for by its versatility and performance and it often out preforms my PRO2006 on the same antenna.

On the various forums and social networks it irks me to see people complaining about its performance but then they are usually the same people who go out and purchase a sub £20 RTL2832U based USB FM/DAB/DTV receiver dongle from eBay to use as a SDR and then complain they cannot get it to work or that its performance is lacking. But then that seems to quite common at the moment, everyone expects to just plug it in and it to just work with the minimum of understanding, involvement or experimentation but I digress.

Unfortunately Elonics the suppliers of the tuner chip in the FUNCube Dongle PRO are currently in liquidation and so they have struggled to produce any more units since July this year. This has potentially serious implications for the whole FUNCube educational project as there is no earth based component. Therefore the FUNCube team have instigated a redesign of the receiver and in doing so have increased its functionality and addressed some of the issues. This is the FUNCube Dongle PRO+

 
The new FUNcube Dongle Pro+ offers the following features and enhancements:

• Full coverage of all amateur bands from 136kHz through HF, 6m, 2m, 4m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, 23cm (150kHz-240MHz and 420MHz-1.9GHz, 70kHz-150kHz coverage through your software’s NCO offset)
• 0.5ppm TCXO
• 192kHz sampling rate
• Eleven discrete front end filters
• Super sharp SAW filters on 2m and 70cm

It is expected mid October 2012 and you can register your interest here

The official release of the FUNcube Dongle PRO+ was made during a presentation given to the AMSAT-UKInternational Space Colloquium 2012 on Saturday September 15. You can view the presentation by following these steps:

- Go to http://www.batc.tv/
- Click on "Film Archive"
- Select "AMSAT 2012" in Category box and click on Select Category
- Select "02 - FUNcube PRO-PLUS" in Stream box and click on Select Stream

Or download the whole video of the presentation from
http://www.batc.tv/vod/AMSAT%20session2.flv