Hi Tom,
The "uplink" connection in the panadapter seems to be the missing piece right now, but truthfully, I have not looked lately to see what's available.
I can tell you that HDSDR and Omni Rig work well with the FT-817 and the FUNcube. In HDSDR, the tuning controls the FT-817 (and tuning the FT-817 manually updates HDSDR) and behind the scenes, HDSDR locks the FUNcube to 68.33 (or whatever you set it to use - I use 68.32 to get away from the DC offset spike). But, no doppler control.
I guess if I were going to do it, I'd tap the common IF of my FT-847. Then use SatPC as usual to control the 847 and HDSDR to just display the FUNcube. I wouldn't have full integration, but I'd be able to see most of the passband and could simply tune the 847 to receive the downlink. SatPC would compensate for uplink Doppler.
I could probably do the same with an FT-817 or two of them....
Having the ability to see other signals in a +/- 40 kHz window (for those weak signals off frequency) was the big plus for us working microwave and I could see it being a big help in satellite work as well.
73, Mike, N1JEZ AMSAT 29649 "A closed mouth gathers no feet"
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Doyle" tomdoyle1948@gmail.com Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: Satellite's
Hi Mike,
I have two radios that have a built in panadapter and have used the dongle as a stand alone panadapter. The problem is all the panadapters I have used or read about, other than SDR based gear like the Flex radios, do not have a connection between the panadapter and the frequency control of the radio. With an SDR receiver you click on the waterfall or spectrum display and the radio is tuned to that frequency. That is what I am trying to do and that bit you get for free with an SDR receiver the hard the part I am trying to solve is controlling the transmit frequency (including doppler correction and offset) when using linear sats. The only way I have been able to do this so far is to use SDR-Radio with its built in doppler correction for the receiver and my IC-7000 as a transmitter under the doppler corrected frequency control of SatPC32. This works but changing the frequency on the SDR does not adjust the transmit freq. I am hoping someone has actually done this as I have never been a big fan of reinventing the wheel.
The FT-817 is a very cool rig and I will be very interested to see how you control the FT-817 frequency from the panadapter - that is the tricky bit since the panadapter does not have to even know what frequency you are receiving. It should be possible to poll the panadapter for the offset of the frequency you have clicked on and add that to the FT-817 frequency and feed it back into the FT-817. I am sure you guys have come up with something. Thanks for writing the article. I look forward to reading it.
73 W9KE Tom Doyle
On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Mike Seguin N1JEZ n1jez@burlingtontelecom.net wrote:
Hi Tom,
There will be an article coming up in the AMSAT Journal on work that W1GHZ, W1FKF and I have done on tapping the common IF in the FT-817 and using the FunCube as a Panadapter. Our primary application is weak signal microwave.
I would think it would work well for satellite. That way your software would be controlling an FT-817. The common IF is centered on 68.33 MHz in the FT-817, so you see +/- 40 kHz around that. You would be able to take advantage of all the front end filtering in the FT-817.
73, Mike, N1JEZ AMSAT 29649 "A closed mouth gathers no feet"
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Doyle" tomdoyle1948@gmail.com Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Satellite's
I am close to a SatPC32 <-> dongle system but there is probably someone with a much better 'simple' or even a 'very simple' solution. I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has actually achieved fully synchronized doppler corrected transmit control with a dongle for the receiver. A reply offline would be best to prevent flames.
--
Sent from my computer.
tom ...