Howto let gpredict talk to your Funcube Dongle

If you want to listen to signals from satellites using a Funcube Dongle, it can be nice to automatically adjust the Dongle´s frequency. This page shows you how to setup your system so gpredict sets the frequency, taking the doppler shift into account.

Requirements (Debian/GNU Linux)

Setup

To set permissions on the Funcube Dongle device and create a symlink in /dev/, use these two lines (taken from the qthid README) in a file in your system´s udev directory (/etc/udev/rules.d/ in Debian/GNU Linux). Restart udev after you added the file 

# Udev rule for the Funcube Dongle to be used with libusb:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb" ATTRS{idVendor}=="04d8" ATTRS{idProduct}=="fb56" MODE:="0666", SYMLINK+="fcd"

# Udev rule for the Funcube Dongle to be used with HIDAPI/hidraw:
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{busnum}=="1", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04d8", ATTRS{idProduct}=="fb56", MODE="0666"

rigctl

We use rigctl and rigctld from hamlib to talk to the Dongle. Test if