Folks,
I was lucky enough to be asked to do a talk at the Martlesham Microwave Round Table today at BT’s Adastral Park Research Centre, where most of the FUNcube satellite team met for the weekend for a serious bunch of tests and some excellent results that I am sure will appear very soon on http://www.funcube.org.uk. The end result was that we did a full end-end test of commanding the satellite (albeit sitting on the bench!) and receiving the downlink, both telemetry and voice, successfully with the FUNcube Dongle.
But what a reception the Dongle received! I have to say I am deeply humbled, and, just like last week at Kempton, I just wish I’d had a ton of them ready to sell.
During the talk, I did a Doppler Demo. Next time you see me, ask for a repeat, it might not be quite what you were expecting…
Richard G8JVM, if you are reading the blog, I left you a reply, apologies for the delay, I’d thought that your question had already been answered elsewhere on the blog shortly afterwards.
Also the G8??? who I chatted to directly after the talk about certification, if you are reading please get in touch. Many thanks!
All in all a great weekend – except for one thing. Three of the four units I built on Thursday night were a nightmare to get working. A delivery of solder paste was late so I used some old stuff that I’ve had in the fridge for at least five years. BIG MISTAKE! It might have looked great when applied, but I had many, many shorts under the QFNs and even one 0402 resistor. That took about 3 hours to fix all three boards. Cough, don’t want to be doing that on a batch of 100…
Howard
I enjoyed the talk, it was fantastic, the kit looks great, and I too wish that you had some to sell.
73
Howard
Howard (G0VTL)
Many thanks for your kind comments. I must say I was blown away by the response. I also think that there were rather more Howards at the event than is strictly necessary. I know I counted three, maybe there were more.
Howard (G6LVB)
Was CCH there? I didn’t see him?
I shall watch progress with interest, I have two objectives, one to demonstrate RF rx to a local scout/explorer group, and two, which is perhaps less challenging is to integrate the dongle into a contest station as an SDR to show activity,…
Howard _ G0VTL
I didn’t bump into him but I saw him on the list – I was buried deep in the FUNcube skunk works most of the time I’m afraid.
Howard
Howard,
great news on the assembly, please can you put me down for a PRO unit
many thanks
Howard
A great talk can’t wait to try a dongle. It was me that offered to help with certification – so please drop me an email
Hi Roger
Many thanks for getting back to me, I have dropped you a note.
Howard