{"id":8,"date":"2010-10-12T13:40:26","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T13:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/?p=8"},"modified":"2010-11-05T12:04:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T12:04:25","slug":"what-is-the-funcube-dongle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/?p=8","title":{"rendered":"What is the FUNcube Dongle?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The FUNcube Dongle concept was originally dreamt up as a way to open up the world of amateur satellite reception to all, so that for a small cost anyone can try their hand at receiving\u00a0the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.funcube.org.uk\">FUNcube Satellite<\/a> that&#8217;s due for launch in the next few months.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P10103995.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-29\" title=\"P1010399\" src=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P10103995.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"655\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P10103995.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P10103995-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The key designed criteria was to produce a receiver that\u00a0is both\u00a0inexpensive and simple\u00a0to use, a true integrated plug and play device, capable of <!--more-->receiving FUNcube. The result is a small USB Dongle, similar in size to a USB TV dongle that we affectionately refer to as the FUNcube Dongle, or FCD to the lazy typists among us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/fcdorg0011.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17 aligncenter\" title=\"The original FUNcube Dongle concept\" src=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/fcdorg0011.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"655\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/fcdorg0011.png 655w, https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/fcdorg0011-300x173.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 655px) 100vw, 655px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/fcdorg001.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\nBut it doesn&#8217;t end there: we realised that, although originally designed as an educational outreach tool to encourage people to become interested in science and technology through space, the FUNcube Dongle had many other applications.<\/p>\n<p>So we came up with two versions, an entry level educational version that covers a limited range of frequencies and the retail &#8220;Pro&#8221; version\u00a0 covering 64 to 1,700MHz. Both cover any 96kHz segment within their respective frequency ranges.<\/p>\n<p>To keep things simple, the device is designed to work out of the box without any new device drivers required. It does this by providing a standard combined USB soundcard interface and a frequency programming interface using the USB HID standard.<\/p>\n<p>The firmware for the FCD is also upgradeable by the end user.<\/p>\n<p>Initial street price for the FCD Pro is estmiated to be around \u00a3100. So far we&#8217;ve built ten units that we&#8217;re testing, three were hand soldered and seven were reflowed.\u00a0We&#8217;re pulling out all the stops now to move to the first production run in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Check my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RqzTBPLqal0\">YouTube video here<\/a>\u00a0for video of the first pre production unit!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P1010330med.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-19 aligncenter\" title=\"The first pre-production FUNcube Dongle\" src=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P1010330med-1024x976.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"610\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P1010330med-1024x976.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P1010330med-300x285.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/P1010330med.jpg 1174w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FUNcube Dongle concept was originally dreamt up as a way to open up the world of amateur satellite reception to all, so that for a small cost anyone can try their hand at receiving\u00a0the FUNcube Satellite that&#8217;s due for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/?p=8\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funcubedongle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}