Downloads

FUNcube Dongle Guides by David Barber

An introduction to the FUNcube Dongle
Setting up Spectravue with the FUNcube Dongle
Firmware Update Guide (Updated!)
WRPlus & FCD configuration (updated 8 Feb 2011)
WRPlus Satellite & FCD setup (updated 8 Feb 2011)

Some software downloads…

Windows fully functional front end
Windows fully functional front end with source (needs firmware 18d or above)
Windows fully functional front end with source (needs firmware 18f or above)
Basic front end with source code
Boot loader with source code
First public firmware release v18b
Beta firmware release v18c
Firmware pre-release v18d
Firmware pre-release v18e (don’t bother, 18f is your man)
Firmware v18f (very stable release)
Firmware v18h (I/Q correction included in firmware)
Firmware v18i (fix to clicking when streaming)
Firmware v18j (Recommended current version: fix the filter preselection between 868MHz & 1GHz)

Qt cross platform source code (original by your truly, a bit flaky)
Much better Qt cross platform frequency control app with source code by Alexandru Csete

Notes:

The fully featured front end makes use of some functionality that exposes some NDA device functionality via a back door API that I used in the early days, so there’s no source available I’m afraid. That functionality will be available in the documented API firmware that I’m working on as we speak.

Tip: with the fully featured front end, pressing the “Defaults” button is almost always the right thing to do when you first plug in the FCD or launch the app. It resets a bunch of gain parameters to something sensible. The basic front end only allows frequency changing.

Known ‘features’ of the Qt host code (this has been written from scratch and these bugs not apply to the earlier Windows-only code)…

o Under Windows, when switching back from bootloader to normal “application” SDR mode, the FCD seems to stay in bootloader mode. Workaround: remove FCD and plug back in again a few seconds later.

o Under OS X and Linux, Switch to bootloader crashes the app. Workaround: Restart the application without removing the FCD. The FCD should now be in bootloader mode.

o Under OS X and Linux, Switch to application crashes the app, and FCD remains in bootloader mode. Workaround: Kill app, remove and reinsert FCD after a few sconds, then restart the application. The FCD should now be in application mode.

Using the bootloader

1. From the fully featured front end, put the dongle into Bootloader mode by pressing the “Reset to bootloader” button.

2. The Frequency Control app will no longer be able to send messages to the dongle once it is in bootloader mode. (Don’t panic, as long as you haven’t erased the device or written a bad binary image [aka a .bin file], if you unplug and plug it back in, it’ll go back to normal SDR mode. If you erased it or wrote a bad image to the device, it will spend its life in bootloader mode until a correct image is written. I spent an awful lot of time trying to make sure it’s very difficult to “brick” the FCD, in fact I haven’t managed to do it yet in its current version).

3. Run the FCHIDBL.exe program. It should show something like this:

HIDOpen of Vid_04d8&Pid_FB56 returns 1
USB VID/PID found.
HIDQuery returns 1
Query message: FCDBL
FCD in bootloader mode
Byte address range: 0x002A00 - 0x007E00
PC address range: 0x001C00 - 0x005400
Device ID address set
Device ID read, DEVID=0x4203, DEVREV=0x0200

4. Open the .bin firmware image file with the “Open file” button.

5. Press the “Write firmware” button. This takes about ten seconds or so. (When in bootloader mode, the soundcard interface says “BOOTLOADER” in 24WPM CW if you run your SDR program)

6. Press the “Reset to app” button and the dongle will now be back in SDR mode. Note that the bootloader app will show the following after “Reset to app” is pressed:

HIDOpen of Vid_04d8&Pid_FB56 returns 1
USB VID/PID found.
HIDQuery returns 0
Error, query device failed

This is normal as the bootloader has realilsed the FCD’s no longer in bootloader mode.

Howard