No drivers required! Device drivers are already included in your operating system - Windows, Linux or Mac OSX, 32 or 64 bit.
* The guaranteed coverage of the FUNcube Dongle Pro+ is from 150kHz to 1.9GHz, and there is a gap in coverage between 240MHz and 420MHz.
Folks
I’ll be travelling to Dayton on Thursday 16 May and I return on Monday 20 May so orders placed during this time will be processed on Monday 20 May.
We continue to have a good inventory, follow this link about ordering details, or if you’re in a real hurry here’s a direct link straight to the shopping cart.
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
After the initial demand, we finally have a good stock of the FUNcube Dongle Pro+ ready for immediate dispatch.
Follow this link about ordering details, or if you’re in a real hurry here’s a direct link straight to the shopping cart.
In Western Europe and North America typically delivery is the following working day. Also if you order three or more, shipping is free!
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
Here’s a video showing the FCD+ streaming the full 192ksps wirelessly to GNU Radio which demodulates a broadcast FM signal streaming from the FCD+.
It uses a MiniEmbWifi router running OpenWRT. GNU Radio is running in Ubuntu in a VMware guest under Windows 8 running on a Mac mini – there’s no platform prejudice here at FCD Towers!
It’s a work-in-progress as part of something else I’ve been working on (http://www.funcubedongle.com/?p=889) that went on the back burner for a while when the FCD+ was being developed and brought to market, but if you enjoy hacking embedded Linux I am sure others with more experience than me of doing that will achieve far better things!
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
Increasingly recently we’ve been seeing problems where the symptoms suggest that folks have used a utility called Zadig to override the operating system’s own drivers, probably because there has been experience with an RTL dongle where it’s common to have to hack user-mode access to the device, overriding the device’s own drivers.
Fundamental to the FCD’s and FCD+’s design was to make it as easy to install as possible, and that means that it uses drivers that are native to your operating system so you don’t have to mess about fruitlessly searching the internet for the right driver, or, indeed use Zadig.
Using Zadig to override the operating system’s drivers for the FCD & FCD+ will not work!
What’s worse is that Zadig doesn’t appear to present a clean way to uninstall its own work from the investigations I’ve done, so getting you back to square one isn’t as easy as it was to install those pesky Zadig configured drivers in the first place.
In order to uninstall it’s a bit complex but here’s a recipe.
o Insert the FCD+ if it isn’t already.
o Look in your C:\Windows\Inf directory and look for all the oem*.inf files which relate to the FCD or FCD+. They are text files, so you can open them in notepad.
o Open an administrator command prompt and run “pnputil -f -d oem##.inf” for each oem##.inf file you found.
o In Device Manager, find entries marked “FUNcube Dongle V2.0 (Interface #)”, right click each and uninstall.
o Remove the FCD/FCD+.
o Now, after 10 or 10 seconds, reinsert the FCD+ and you should now have the device properly recognised. I recommend too that you take this opportunity to read the manual.
When properly working, the FCD+ presents a sound device (FUNcube Dongle V2.0), a human interface device (“HID-compliant device”), and under Universal Serial Bus controllers there should be a “USB Composite Device” entry for it. When properly configured, whn removing the FCD these three entries should all automatically disappear, and reappear when inserted.
If you still have entries in Device Manager in the form “FUNcube Dongle V2.0 (Interface #)” then you still have work to do to uninstall them.
Removing Zadig’s work is messy, time-consuming, and prone to possibly catastrophic errors if you remove the wrong driver.
So, to save yourself a whole lot of grief, the advice is simple: while you are welcome to use Zadig with your other devices, please DO NOT USE ZADIG under any circumstances to override the drivers for the FCD or FCD+!
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
We’re expecting to receive a new batch of FCD+ units from the manufacturers on about 12 April. We can have these tested an ready for dispatch within 24 hours.
Please register you interest here, and we’ll send you an email as soon as your unit’s ready.
Many thanks, Howard
Folks,
The Royal Mail increased Special Delivery costs from £5.90 to £6.22 over the weekend and I’ve updated the shipping costs appropriately.
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
We’re taking a slightly extended Easter break this year, so the last time for shipping before Easter will be at 11:00 UTC on Wednesday 27 March (12:00 CET, 06:00 EST, 03:00 PST).
We’ll be open as usual on Tuesday 2 April.
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
Firstly, thank you all for your patience if you’re on the waiting list. If you’re not already on it, head here for details on joining in!
The PCB assembler is about to restart operations now we have parts to get going. This means that we’ll have delivery of assembled PCBs in the next couple of days. Once we receive them, I only need 24 hours to run through the final assembly and testing and then they’re available for purchase.
So I would imagine, if all goes to plan, that by Tuesday 19 Feb we’ll be in a position to restart shipping for those of you on the waiting list, so keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation to purchase.
Once again, I thank you for your patience.
Many thanks, Howard
Folks
Firstly, I apologise for the recent lack of communication on the website. This is purely down to lack of time on my part in conjunction with a welcome two-week vacation seeing family over in British Columbia, Canada, and the jet-lag that that entails. I believe it’s my first two-week vacation in over ten years. The downside of taking such a long break has been a deluge of correspondence to face upon my return, something that I’m still trying to catch up on, for which I apologise.
Right now we’re already gearing up for a third (and even fourth) production run that’s due to start in the next ten days or so, although we are still receiving the last 100 or so assembled boards from the second production run. So far we’ve been ordering enough stock to run 1,000 for each run. This is very much a finger-in-the-air estimate. I am profoundly glad that we managed to fulfill all the pre-Christmas orders that were taken directly through the website, it was hard work! The board assemblers really pulled out all the stops and, with some help from my extended family, we managed to get those units I’d promised would be out before Christmas delivered, and then some. In fact, for a few days between Christmas and New Year we actually had a small positive inventory.
Upon my return from vacation we’ve found that there have been some unforeseen discrepancies in parts stock, and this has delayed getting back up to speed on the remainder of the second production run. I used to think that managing 30 or so discrete line items on the BOM (that is, 30 unique parts) for the original FCD was hard work. With 100 line items for the FCD+ it’s that much harder: one part on back order will delay everything. and substituting parts means re-testing. I take my hat off to those who do procurement on a daily basis, it really is hard and frustrating work. While it might not appear to be the exciting face of manufacturing, procurement is certainly an essential role that should be deeply appreciated.
The good news is that I am led to believe that the SAW filters that are usually on a long lead time (10-12 weeks) are arriving in the next couple of days: these are the single most expensive parts of the FCD+ and already we’ve placed a full order for the fourth production run as a result of the lead time on them. (Side-note, and certainly something they don’t teach you at college: the impact of Chinese New Year on parts delivery is most definitely not to be under-estimated).
The bad news is that the microcontrollers, due last week, had been pushed back to March while I was away (don’t worry it’s not March, read on). These days I’m canny enough that although second sourcing isn’t always possible these days, at least I give myself the option a few different devices: I learnt that, by luck, from the original FCD. There are two different microcontroller chips that went out with the original FCD, not that anyone ever noticed, one had more memory than the other, but because that extra memory wasn’t needed, it’s left unused. However those of you who don’t have the “deluxe” extra memory version can rest assured that those who do are basking in unnecessary glory: that extra memory just means it takes longer for them to re-flash their devices.
The same applies to the FCD+, there are a handful of different microcontrollers that have been tested and work in the FCD+, but, similar to the original FCD, sourcing any of them right now is proving frustrating, I suspect because they’re all based on the same wafer die. I found it interesting that a phone call to the manufacturer seemed to bring that March date forward to February 3. While I am grateful, I am scratching my head as to how all this chip manufacturing and assembly works!
The great news is that my assemblers have been kept abreast of this so, while there’ll be a hundred or so coming out over the next week or so from the final second production run, once those pesky microcontrollers are in we’ll be pushing them out super-quick at the beginning of February. Indeed, typically, once I receive units from the board assembler, they’re put in enclosures, re-tested, and out within one working day.
I truly thank you all for your patience while I organise myself after my vacation, although I can’t promise it’ll be ten years before I take my next two-weeker.
Thank you all again, Howard
Folks
Firstly, seasons’ greetings to all of you!
I’ll be away from 1 January until 13 January 2013, so any orders I receive won’t be processed until I return. It is likely that the limited stock I have (as I write this, you can order here, with more information about ordering here) will expire either shortly before I go or a little after, when you can add yourself to the waiting list which I’ll go through on my return.
Alternatively, you can order from resellers, but as demand is currently outstripping supply, I would recommend that you specifically check with your reseller that they really do have stock ready to dispatch that day before ordering to avoid disappointment.
While I’m away the manufacturer is still operating, and I expect to have more stock available when I return, but it may take a few days to go through the waiting list.
My cutoff for deliveries before I depart is 31 December at 11:00 UTC.
Many thanks, Howard
