Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] DV Dongle - AMBE USB Device

[Eric A. Cottrell]

Hello,

I got the DV Dongle friday and it seems to work.  I downloaded an
application to decode DStar on the computer but DStar is not very
popular in the area yet.  I have not decoded any DStar voice so far.
I only did a AMBE loopback test.

I got concerned because all the application software I downloaded on the
dv dongle website was closed source with no mention of the open source
firmware or GNU licenses.  All the various voice rates in the test
software are gone.  It appears to be DStar only.  There is a link on the
dvdongle.com website pointing to the open source firmware project but 
the link does not mention firmware source.  It is possible the makers 
locked out non-DStar voice rates before taking the product commercial.

I asked on the DV Dongle Yahoo Groups list and it appears there is no
developer's SDK.  There is no documentation on using what appears to be
a UDP to ascp daemon.  A person replied to my query and said all IMBE
rates are available.  But given the events I wonder if anyone has tried 
other rates.  It seems the makers are trying to make it difficult to use 
this device for non-DStar stuff.

It also appears the company making the DV Dongle is violating the terms
of the GNU License.  None of the materials in the box or on the website
mention it uses GNU tools and that source is available.  There is a link
to source code but the link description does not mention source code and
it goes to another site.

So it will likely be a week or so before I can test the device due to
writing and debugging an ASCP driver.  It looks like I am on my own in 
figuring it out using the provided documentation.

73 Eric