I have been working with some of the new low cost RTL2832U+E4000 dongles that are flooding the market. It appears that they are designed for the digital TV market in some countries outside the US. They cost about $20. They usually come with an antenna and a remote control. The antenna and remote are useless but the dongle does work. It has a PAL antenna connector which is not a problem since an adapter are available at Radio Shack.

It takes a bit of digging around to find the drivers. There was some sort of license fight between a couple of "open source" developers which makes it a bit more difficult than it should be. I have one 'working' with HDSDR. It is still a little funky changing frequencies with the 'FreqMgr' but it is early days. The performance is the same as the FUNcube. There are quite a number of different chipsets in use so buyer beware.

If you like hunting for working drivers and ExtIO programs and tinkering these E4000 dongles are for you. IMHO the FUNcube Dongle is still the best bet for the rest of us. My FUNcube has been sitting on the shelf for quite a while as it does not perform as well as my receiver even with the help of a SSB mast mounted pre-amp and cavity front end filter. I was talking with someone on FO-29 and they mentioned they use theirs as just a panadapter. I dug my FUNcube out and it does work well as a panadapter (no connection to the receiver required). Very handy on those rare occasions when there are more than zero people on the linear sats.

SDR-Radio v1.5 works well with the FUNcube . Very nice work by Simon. I do miss the picture of him and his dog when the SDR-Radio program boots up.

Very interested in seeing Howards "FUNcube Dongle PRO-PLUS". I hope the PLUS is not a price increase. In an attempt to find out what it is before the official release I searched the net and came up with this gem from 2010 on the http://www.funcubedongle.com 'Ordering FAQ' page. Be sure to check out the link.

" admin says: October 26, 2010 at 2:21 pm

I am working on a Pro Plus version http://www.proplus.co.uk/ to enable us to work 24/7 on the Dongle. "

Thanks to all the Europeans who manage to keep out hobby alive and up to date.

73 W9KE Tom Doyle

On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 1:09 PM, Trevor . m5aka@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

AMSAT-UK are delighted to announce that Howard Long, G6LVB, will be present at the Colloquium this year and will be launching a new "FUNcube Dongle PRO-PLUS" during his presentation.

Full technical details have been embargoed until his talk and we are not permitted to steal his thunder by releasing further details of this new product in advance. Attendees at the Colloquium will therefore be the first to learn about Howard's latest development which will further advance the applications for SDR devices.

The Colloquium is a truly international event and will include:

Exclusive access to inspect the new SSTL clean room and integration facilities at the recently opened Kepler Building. If you have visited their previous facilities at the university campus, during previous Colloquia, you will be amazed by what is happening now.

Presentations by experts from AMSAT-SA, AMSAT-NA and AMSAT-DL on their current spacecraft projects.

CubeSat presentations on UKube-1, STRaND-1, STRaND-2 and, of course the FUNcube-1 project.

We will be including an exclusive roundup of a number of new live and potential spacecraft projects that are under investigation and/or development.

Additionally a number of presentations are planned covering new communications techniques and similar futuristic topics.

Plus all the usual networking opportunities, the gala dinner and auction/raffle, plus the opportunity to operate the sophisticated groundstation in the GB4FUN mobile demonstration module.

The Colloquium takes place at the Holiday Inn, Guildford, GU2 7XZ, England, September 15-16. Rooms and Saturday’s Gala Dinner must be booked in advance at http://tinyurl.com/Colloquium-2012-Booking

Further information http://www.uk.amsat.org/colloquium/twelve

73 Trevor M5AKA AMSAT-UK

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