Tuesday, January 25, 2011

FUNcube - Fun

After the initial FUNcube test (see previous post) I wanted to try to find my cell phone transmitted signal.

But there are two problems;
  • I do not know the transmitted frequency of the cell phone.
  • And, searching for a signal within a 35MHz wide band while looking at just a 40kHz segment on the waterfall, is problematic. I just could not change the LO Frequency fast enough to make the search reasonable.
Finding a signal with a known frequency should and will be easy. But, finding a particular signal at a unknown frequency within the FUNcube's very wide frequency range (65MHz to 1.7GHz) will take some real effort.

I think my cell phone transmits on the 880MHz to 915MHz range - but I need to do some more Internet research. 

The digital cell phone signal can not be decoded into audio by the FUNcube, but it will make for an easy FUNcube demonstration using only a short wire antenna, once I find the right frequency.


UPDATE
On MS Window XP, Setting the FUNcube LO Frequency Calibration from 999885 to 999854 corrected the previous erroneously reported FT-817 to 440.000480MHz, until I have something better for a Frequency Standard, this will do.
So far, I have not figured out how to set the FUNcube LO via Ubuntu 10.04 (the computer of choice).  The HDSDR program running via Wine, decodes the audio, but I can not set the LO Frequency.  Also, the FCHid.exe Control Program runs. but it can not find the FUNcube.

- Follow the FUNcube Label Link below to follow ALL of my FUNcube adventures.


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1 comment:

  1. looks like fun! I have done nothing further with the CPUs. maybe soon as things settle down. Lots of stuff breaking on the boat to fix these days.

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