Amazing peice of kit!
Hello,
Is there a U.S. source to directly purchase one of the FunCube Dongles from ?
Any thoughts on the Pro version from anyone having one would be appreciated.
BTW: is there a YahooGroup for ?
Thanks,
Bob
I have the FCDPro+.
IMHO, it is the best bang for buck that you can buy in SDR today.
Don't bother with the previous versions. If you are going to buy a FCD, buy the 'one with the lot'!
Honestly, I have many receivers and scanners in my shack. But, the receiver I listen to most of all and get most enjoyment from, is the FCDP+.
I've owned the thing virtually since they were first released and still I'm finding new things I can listen to on it.
Some Pro's:
* LF, HF, VHF & UHF in one tiny package (minus 'the gap' - see below).
* Excellent frequency stability (little, if any drift with temp/time).
* Amazing sensitivity and low noise floor. Better than any scanner I own on VHF & UHF. Awesome for very weak signal reception/modes. Awesome on VLF/HF as well.
* Receiver is very 'gain' stable. Unlike RTL Dongles that often become very noisy, spurious and temperamental if the RF gain is not set correctly, the FCDP+ can be left on maximum gain all the time.
* Individual bandpass filters for various HF, VHF & UHF bands.
* Simple setup (no drivers required) and multiple SDR controller software available.
* Small! Not much bigger than a typical RTL TV tuner dongle. Great for traveling or your main shack receiver.
* DSDPlus has taken the FCDP+ to a whole new level of capability, with P25, DMR and other digital voice modes.
* Combine the FCDP+ with a cheap RTL TV tuner dongle (Control channel receiver) and Unitrunker and you have a full blown trunk tracking scanner.
Cons:
* Gap between about 250-400Mhz. Miss out on Milair/Milsatcom stuff.
* Somewhat limited sampling rate. Frequency span and receive bandwidth are limited to 192Khz. This compares to multi-Mhz wide spans for RTL TV tuner dongles and some other SDR hardware. Not really an issue for Narrow band modes right up to FM stereo broadcast reception. But no good for ADSB, DVB-T or other wide band modes.
I'm looking forward to the public release of Airspy, but the FCDP+ will remain my go to radio for general HF/VHF/UHF listening