Funcube Dongle Pro+ w/GQRX (Ubuntu)
Does anybody have experience with this combination? I've been having issues with my dedicated FoxTelem Raspberry Pi station, so I've taken it down in favor of my APRS SatGate (which uses an RTL-SDR instead of the FCDPP) - and decided to use the FCDPP for my Rx in my normal everyday shack operations. However I can't seem to connect to the dongle at all with GQRX. GQRX is doing something, but there is no waterfall and no audio.
I'm somewhat concerned that the issue with my FoxTelem station was with the dongle itself, as I seem to remember successfully connecting to the dongle with GQRX in the past. I've tried the dongle on two separate pcs running Ubuntu 18.04 with no luck. I am able to start FoxTelem on a raspberry pi and it seems to start decoding as expected (however the failure mode is when it's left unattended for a couple of days, it ends up stalling with a USB access error).
Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.
--Roy K3RLD
Quoting Roy Dean via AMSAT-BB who wrote on Sun 2020-10-11 at 11:52:
Does anybody have experience with this combination? I've been having issues with my dedicated FoxTelem Raspberry Pi station, so I've taken it down in favor of my APRS SatGate (which uses an RTL-SDR instead of the FCDPP) - and decided to use the FCDPP for my Rx in my normal everyday shack operations. However I can't seem to connect to the dongle at all with GQRX. GQRX is doing something, but there is no waterfall and no audio.
I'm somewhat concerned that the issue with my FoxTelem station was with the dongle itself, as I seem to remember successfully connecting to the dongle with GQRX in the past. I've tried the dongle on two separate pcs running Ubuntu 18.04 with no luck.
The sampling part of the funcube dongle is an audio device from the view of Linux. This means the audio subsystem will 'grab' it and make it available to applications.
Run (may need to be installed) pavucontrol, go to the Configuration tab, find the funcube dongle that will show as 'FUNcuble Dongle' there and switch the 'Profile' to 'Off'.
Now try again with qgrx.
Changes you make with pavucontrol are saved automatically.
Koos PE4KH
Roy, I'd be interested to know what problems you had with your Pi-based FoxTelem, but I realize that you have gone beyond that.
One thought: I know one person who had issues with an FCDPP plugging into the USB socket successfully. I tried several different sockets, and the USB-3 socket (often with a blue interior) seems to work better/tighter, probably not because of USB-3 but just the slightly different socket worked better. You might also try a short "USB extension cord" to take the weight off the joint.
Also, do the command lsusb on a terminal and see if it actually sees the FCDPP. I think it is the one that says "Microchip Technology
On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 11:55 AM Roy Dean via AMSAT-BB [email protected] wrote:
Does anybody have experience with this combination? I've been having issues with my dedicated FoxTelem Raspberry Pi station, so I've taken it down in favor of my APRS SatGate (which uses an RTL-SDR instead of the FCDPP) - and decided to use the FCDPP for my Rx in my normal everyday shack operations. However I can't seem to connect to the dongle at all with GQRX. GQRX is doing something, but there is no waterfall and no audio.
I'm somewhat concerned that the issue with my FoxTelem station was with the dongle itself, as I seem to remember successfully connecting to the dongle with GQRX in the past. I've tried the dongle on two separate pcs running Ubuntu 18.04 with no luck. I am able to start FoxTelem on a raspberry pi and it seems to start decoding as expected (however the failure mode is when it's left unattended for a couple of days, it ends up stalling with a USB access error).
Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.
--Roy K3RLD _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
On 10/11/20 08:52, Roy Dean via AMSAT-BB wrote:
Does anybody have experience with this combination? I've been having issues with my dedicated FoxTelem Raspberry Pi station, so I've taken it down in favor of my APRS SatGate (which uses an RTL-SDR instead of the FCDPP) - and decided to use the FCDPP for my Rx in my normal everyday shack operations. However I can't seem to connect to the dongle at all with GQRX. GQRX is doing something, but there is no waterfall and no audio.
I'm somewhat concerned that the issue with my FoxTelem station was with the dongle itself, as I seem to remember successfully connecting to the dongle with GQRX in the past. I've tried the dongle on two separate pcs running Ubuntu 18.04 with no luck. I am able to start FoxTelem on a raspberry pi and it seems to start decoding as expected (however the failure mode is when it's left unattended for a couple of days, it ends up stalling with a USB access error).
I have a lot of experience with the Funcube dongle (the pro+ version) on the RPi and x86. I've probably handled 10 of them, only one was DoA and I don't think any have worked and later failed. But I do occasionally see problems that require resetting the USB subsystem, which is probably most easily done by rebooting. Have you looked at the kernel log? Use the "dmesg" command, which you will probably have to run as root ("sudo dmesg"). Also verify with "lsusb" that the system sees the device.
Phil
On 10/11/20 10:09, Burns Fisher via AMSAT-BB wrote:
Also, do the command lsusb on a terminal and see if it actually sees the FCDPP. I think it is the one that says "Microchip Technology
That's right. You should see a line like:
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 04d8:fb31 Microchip Technology, Inc. FUNcube Dongle V2.0
The bus and device numbers will probably be different, but the rest of the line starting with ID should be the same.
Note that while the data path of the device looks just like an audio device, there's also a control interface that requires a driver and library.
Phil
participants (4)
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Burns Fisher -
Koos van den Hout -
Phil Karn -
Roy Dean