ARLA/CLUSTER: Em 9 meses de actividade, FUNcube tem 1500 membros.

[João Gonçalves Costa]

FUNcube group reaches 1500 members

In just 9 months the AMSAT-UK FUNcube Yahoo Group has achieved 1,500 members.

The group was created by Rob Styles M0TFO at the end of October 2010 to provide support for the AMSAT-UK FUNcube satellite and the Software Defined Radio (SDR) FUNcube Dongle (FCD).

The FUNcube satellite project is an educational CubeSat project with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. It will support the educational Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) initiatives and provide an additional resource for the RSGB GB4FUN Radio Communications Demonstration Module.

The target audience is school pupils in the 8-18 age range. 
As well as providing a strong 145 MHz telemetry beacon for the pupils to receive FUNcube will also have a 435/145 MHz linear transponder for Amateur Radio SSB/CW use.

The SDR FUNcube Dongle was originally developed for educational outreach as part of the ground segment for the FUNcube satellite.

However, it was realised it can be used for many other applications as well, so AMSAT-UK developed a Pro version which has a frequency range of 64-1700 MHz.

Similar to a USB TV Dongle, the FCD simply fits into a computer USB port and can be used with freely available Software Defined Radio software. The FCD is all-mode which this means that as well as data, it will also receive many other signals including AM, FM, SSB and CW. It will even receive analog TV sound channels !

More information on the FUNcube satellite project is at
http://FUNcube.org.uk/overview/

To purchase a SDR FUNcube Dongle see
http://www.FUNcubeDongle.com/?page_id=286

Join the FUNcube Yahoo Group at
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube/

AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, which is full of Amateur Satellite information.
Join online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK

A sample edition of the newsletter can be seen at
http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf