Funcube dongle radio astronomy software

For this reason, some users tend to run all dashboards simultaneously using the same funcube dongle. Groups amsatuk funcube satellites and the original funcube dongle fcd software defined radio sdr softwaredefined radio software. David morgan 2w0cxv has released several papers covering the use of the rtlsdr dongle in radio astronomy in 2011 david described the equipment configuration and software involved in setting to work a small 3m diameter amateur radio telescope using the funcube dongle pro software defined radio receiver. What should i consider when selecting an sdr dongle. 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. The funcube dongle also has a sma antenna connector on the other end. As you may know, although the funcube dongle was originally designed with receiving signals from space in mind, theres nothing special about extraterrestrial radio waves when compared to those on terra firma. Hydrogen line receiver using funcube or rtl2832u usb. Beginners tab purchasing a radio telescope isnt like buying an optical telescope. Today, november 21st 2019, marks the sixth birthday of our very first cubesat mission, funcube1. I have used it on a number of computers including some quite old not very powerful machines and with different software applications primarily the sdrradio and hdsdr suites. We are making an integrated observatory for radio and optical observations, using a variety of hardware. It describes one method of using the low cost software defined radio rtl dongle to make quantitative measurements of radio noise signal strengths in the context of amateur radio and amateur radio astronomy.

Welcome to the funcube group which caters for the amsatuk funcube satellites and the original funcube dongle fcd software defined radio sdr. The center frequency of the funcube dongle can be set by software. The satellite carries a material science project and amongst other things has the capacity to transmit telemetry that. Figure 3 homemade plastic single lnb mounting bracket. Starbase is open source gpl distributed by the uk radio astronomy association ukraa, in conjunction with the british astronomical association. It covers lf, mf, hf, vhf, uhf and l band coverage is. Device drivers are already included in your operating system windows, linux or mac osx, 32 or 64 bit. With an sdr, many of the functions of a traditional hardwareonly radio are performed in software, such as demodulation, decoding and frequency conversion. Listening to fm radio, and decoding rds information. Feb 04, 2020 back in 2016, we wrote one of our most popular posts covering 12 popular software defined radios or sdrs. How to receive funcube satellite telemetry digital rust. In the paper dr david morgan of the british astronomical association radio astronomy group baarag describes how he used the funcube dongle as the heart of a radio telescope. The current release of the software and firmware is version 1. The results were so good that they also brought their gold standard racal ra3791 to the game, and the results are surprising.

I am happy to publish articles on linux uses in funcube and amsat projects so feel free to submit them to give your good work a wider audience. Mark spencer, wa8sme figure 1 radio telescope system based on tv dish antenna. Ever since i got my funcube dongle pro last christmas it has been the main focus of my radio experimentation. At this time i would have to say that the funcube dongle fcd is more of.

Amateur radio hobbyist n4jtcs has shared on his blog his experiences with receiving the funcube1s telemetry using his rtlsdr dongle. Recently, the funcube1 satellite was successfully launched. Use rtlsdr as a high quality entropy source for random number generation. Hi, im doing a small radio astronomy project and im going to listen to listen to 1420 mhz hydrogen line with a home brew dish and scanning system. It is written using the qt sdk and is available for linux, windows and mac os x. This software supports radios from many manufacturers, all shown on this page. The icom icpcr computercontrolled radio receiver used to be a stalwart of radio astronomy a few years ago here is a link to a zip folder containing a range of resources for this receiver. The difference in the 2017 and 2018 counts could reflect the different densities of the dust trails caused by the variations in the parent comets emissions. Hdsdr is a freeware software defined radio sdr program for microsoft windows 2000xpvista7. Using hdsdr with the funcube dongle page 3 in the files section of the funcube yahoo. Jun 22, 20 ive been spending a few hours playing around with a funcube dongle pro. The yellow band in the bottom blue spectrogram window is the 6 db rise in signal strength as the radio dish is moved across the sun. All the software has been built and tested both on raspberry pi 2 and 3. Radio astronomy software defined radio rasdr society of.

Funcube dongle pro plus rosliston astronomy group blog. Also included is a program that writes fcdpp sample data to its standard output stdout port. It was a little fiddly to initially set up but i have been impressed with its performance, it has opened my. Thought this might be of interest to the readers of this part of the forum, it is a software defined radio in a usb dongle that receives from 64mhz to 1. It is the first satellite with outreach as its primary mission. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. These modes can also be received with the rtlsdr and an upconverter such as the nooelec hamitup upconverter. The secret to success using howard longs original funcube dongle pro is using free sdrdx software, a preamp, and a par notch filter to eliminate adjacent channel pager interference. Groups amsatuk funcube satellites and the original funcube dongle fcd software defined radio sdr software defined radio software. A very short time after the launch from yasny in russia and within a few minutes from deployment, the very first frame of data from the low power transmitter on board, was detected and decoded by zs1ls in. With a standard lnb and spectravue software it is possible to measure sun noise and cold sky noise. Funcube dongle pro sdr radio astronomy and spectroscopy.

Gqrx is a software defined radio receiver for funcube dongle fcd, rtl2832ubased dvbt devices rtlsdr, universal software radio peripherals usrp and osmo sdr devices. In fact, at least one funcube dongle has even found its way into space itself on board a satellite. Telemetry dashboards for all missions welcome to the. In 2011 david described the equipment configuration and software involved in setting to work a small 3m diameter amateur radio telescope using the funcube dongle pro software defined radio receiver. Insert the funcube dongle into the usbport from your computer. In the paper dr david morgan of the british astronomical association radio astronomy group baarag describes how he used the funcube dongle as the heart of a radio telescope operating on 1420 mhz. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading software defined radio. Simon browns sdrradio worked as well, and with equal ease, though as luck would have it i tried it on the very day that the free licence key for the program expired. It covers lf, mf, hf, vhf, uhf and l band coverage is 150khz240mhz and 420mhz to 1. The funcube dongle7 fcd using spectravue8 software. David morgan 2w0cxv has released several papers covering the use of the rtlsdr dongle in radio astronomy in 2011 david described the equipment configuration and software involved in setting to work a small 3m diameter amateur radio telescope using the funcube dongle pro software defined radio receiver at the end of 2014 he published a paper dealing with the setting up and use of a rtlsdr. Apr 23, 20 download qthid funcube dongle controller for free. Sep 12, 2012 ever since i got my funcube dongle pro last christmas it has been the main focus of my radio experimentation. There was a lot of excitement about this project a couple of years ago when it started.

In order to get one you had to be quick off the mark on ebay. The quadrature sampling rate is at 96 khz with 80 khz useable. Funcube sdr dongle overview and first impressions ham. Be sure you use the following parameters then go to the funcube tab and enter the frequency. Rasdr2 is the current hardware that is in testing with a planned general release at this conference. Ao73funcube1 funcube1 dashboard v1044 funcube2 no longer operational eseo funcube4 not yet operational eseo dashboard v1177 eo88nayif1 funcube5 nayif1 dashboard v1040 jo97jy1sat funcube6 jy1sat dashboard v1189 updated january 2019 the guidance notes can be downloaded from here. This note describes one method of using the low cost software defined radio rtl dongle to make quantitative measurements of radio signal strengths in the context of amateur radio and amateur radio astronomy. Spectravue has some useful options for collecting, outputting and processing radio astronomy data. The funcube is a cubesat a low cost miniature 10cm cube sized satellite which is intended mainly for educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics, but has also piqued the interest of amateur radio hobbyists amateur radio hobbyist n4jtcs has shared on his blog his experiences with receiving the funcube1. This is the third article in a series dealing with the use of the rtl sdr dongle. A radio astronomy paper describes the use of the amsatuk funcube dongle software defined radio as part of a radio telescope. An out of the box test of the highly innovative funcubedongle sdr software defined radio. Funcube is an educational cubesat project with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics.

Funcube1 is a complete educational single unit cubesat satellite with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. Download icom icpcr zip folder containing manual, software, and other information. Use rtlsdr as a panadapter for your traditional hardware radio. Many amateurs are engaged in developing hardware, software, and methodologies to expand the.

The radio astronomy software defined receiver rasdr is an open hardware project undertaken by members of the society of amateur radio astronomerssara to develop a low cost, high performance software defined receiver for use by sara members. It runs well also on a debian jessie virtual machine. Before getting this sdr dongle, i had used one of the cheapcheap rtl dongles, and thought that for its low price, that rtl was fun, if woefully inadequate from overload to filtering to noise floor to range deafness on a 90 grounded, unund random wire and then thought perhaps more money would garner a better. The total count for the month was 1497, with an average daily total of 48, with a maximum of 91 for the 14th march.

Recommended by the british astronomical association radio astronomy group at least in 2014, baa rag for radio astronomy, this small, portable software defined radio is cheaper, more sensitive and efficient than older radios such as the r7000. This is an rtlsdr software defined radio receiver with rtl2832u adc chip, 1ppm tcxo, sma f connector, r820t2 tuner and aluminium case with passive cooling. For 2 meter repeater reception, i use a funcube dongle with sdrdx software v. Individual dashboard installers for each mission can be downloaded here. Funcube 1 ao73 is a small cube shaped satellite launched into earths orbit on nov 21st in 20. It supports the educational science, technology, engineering and math stem initiatives. Build a homebrew radio telescope american radio relay.

It is part of a program which aims to launch more of these educational cubesats. Dr morgan uses his funcube dongle with the spectrumlab windows software, which is a specialized audio analyzer. They are harder to find, and usually require assembly and software troubleshooting. The big advantage of spectravue compared to other sdr software is that its simple in use and it has very good possibilities in showing extreme weak signals. Mine works flawlessly and receives dozens of two meter repeaters 100 miles away. Listening to and looking at dab broadcast radio signals. Funcube1 ao73 is a complete educational 1u cubesat with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. March is not noted for any major shower and the months count is made up of sporadics and contributions from minor showers. While the previous post still holds some extremely valuable information, a lot has changed in 3 years.

David morgan 2w0cxv has released several papers covering the use of the rtlsdr dongle in radio astronomy. Rtlsdr blog r820t2 rtl2832u 1ppm tcxo sma software defined radio. Users should remember the that dashboard that was started last, is the one that will control the frequency settings applied to the funcube dongle. Programs are present to demodulate am, cw, fm and ssb usb, lsb streams. Feb 08, 2011 funcube dongle guides by david barber. The radio astronomy software defined receiver rasdr is a system that provides a versatile software defined receiver sdr that is optimized for radio astronomy.

Sara is dedicated to the exploration of radio astronomy at the amateur level. An introduction to the funcube dongle setting up spectravue with the funcube dongle firmware update guide updated. By using the rtlsdr to receive the telemetry beacon as the satellite passes overhead, he was able to use the funcube dashboard software to record and decode and view the satellites telemetry data. Software defined radio is an implementation of a radio communication system where components that have normally been implemented in hardware e. Build a homebrew radio telescope explore the basics of radio astronomy with this easy to construct telescope. This section describes some early experiments carried out in july 2011 to determine the performance of an amateur radio telescope employing a software defined radio.