We have 26 orders on the books, so we are moving to production. We will continue to accept orders until the end of February. We should be shipping in April.
This will not be a stock item, we are building to order only. There will only be a future build if we reach sufficient numbers again, so if you are interested, now is the time to place an order.
We want to thank again the XLX team for “Putting the Amateurs back in Amateur Radio” by providing their transcoding solution.
The ThumbDV is on sale now thru the end of July for $99.95!
If you have questions about a recent order, please email to orders@nwdigitalradio.com
Thanks,
Bryan K7UDR
We are please to announce that the $99.95 sale price has been extended thru the end of August. Get yours now!
The ThumbDV will be on sale for $99.95, a $20 Discount, until existing stock is gone. We are making an updated version with component changes to facilitate assembly.
THERE IS NO FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCE IN THE NEW VERSION!
So get yours now before the price returns to $119.95!
Beginning with orders placed after July 9th, 2015 a new revision of the ThumbDV
will be shipped.
The only difference between the original ThumbDV and the new model ‘A’ is that the USB serial port will now operate at 460800 baud instead of 230400 baud. Programs like WinDV, DummyRepeater, and AMBEserver have been updated to support both baud rates. It may take a few days for DummyRepeater to be pushed out with the change.
There is no change for D-STAR applications except selecting the faster baud rate.
Note: At this time we recommend using DummyRepeater with ‘AMBEserver -n’ (-n is for new baud rate) for best performance with model ‘A’.
The latest source for AMBEserver can be found at GitHub.
Why are we changing the baud rate?
NW Digital Radio has been working with some OEM customers who will be integrating the ThumbDV into their products, including DMR based systems, and their existing programs use the higher baud rate to communicate with the AMBE3000 chip. Moving to the higher rate allows these customers to more quickly integrate these systems.
Will older ThumbDV devices continue to be supported and sold?
NW Digital Radio will support ThumbDV both original and ‘A’ models.
Our inventory of original ThumbDV dongles sold out on the same day that the new model ‘A’ was delivered from the Washington State assembly house. We do not plan to manufacture any additional 230400 baud ‘original’ ThumbDV dongles.
All new orders will receive the ThumbDV model ‘A’
What about the PiDV (DV3000)?
There are no plans to move the PiDV (GPIO) to a different baud rate. However, it is relatively easy for the user to modify the boards to support additional baud rates through trace cutting and jumpers. [Note: the PiDV is not currently being produced or sold. Please use the ThumbDV. If you need a large quantity of PiDV, 50 or more, contact sales.]
There has been some confusion, hopefully the following will help clear it up.
The ability to do vocoding for DMR, D-STAR, Fusion, P25 Phase 2, etc. is built into the AMBE 3000 chip. The new Model ‘A’ only changes the baud rate that the serial port passes packets to and from the chip. It does not change any other capability between the original and Model ‘A’.
The 230400 baud rate is sufficient for all of these protocols. The OEM(s) we are working with are swapping out another USB AMBE-3000 device with the ThumbDV. That other device was strapped at 460800 and they just want to swap it out.
It doesn’t make sense for us to make 2 models, one strapped at 230400 and one strapped at 460800 so we are now making all units strapped at the higher baud rate.
There is no secret, hidden, message here. It’s a simple baud rate change that we wanted customers to be aware of, nothing more.
Here is the math:
The fastest input from one voice stream is 128 Kbps (8000 samples per second at 16 bits). So 230 kbps in is more than sufficient. The fastest rate out is full rate at 7.2kbps, DMR, Fusion half rate, and D-STAR are at 3.6kbps. (This is for encoding, reverse for decoding.) There is only one packet stream, so you don’t get any doubling of these numbers.
There is literally nothing different than the selected baud rate, implemented in an update printed circuit board that changes what lines are strapped down.
The AMBE 3000 chip provides the vocoding, and only the vocoding. The various protocols embed the vocoding in their respective data streams. The ‘devices’ (e.g. AMBE 3000 boards, dongles, etc.) are not involved in the actual protocols, only in turning voice into AMBE and AMBE into voice.
Please view John Speaks on DV Modes at MicroHams to see how digital voice systems are built up.
FlexRadio Systems®, the premier manufacturer of amateur radio SDR transceivers, will soon release an update to their SmartSDR software in support of the JARL’s D-STAR standard through installing the ThumbDV Waveform Module into SmartSDR.
Owners of FLEX-6000 Signature Series transceivers may add AMBE encoding/decoding to their radios by inserting the ThumbDV into one of the available USB ports. Use of D-STAR digital voice mode will then be enabled through SmartSDR software.
“The partnership of NW Digital Radio and FlexRadio Systems forged at DCC last year has yielded a unique opportunity for FlexRadio owners to add the D-STAR mode to their FLEX-6000, as a component of our growing digital voice offerings.” said Steve Hicks, N5AC, VP Engineering for FlexRadio Systems®.
“It’s been great working with Flex to add D-STAR to their world class SDR and are excited about being a part of their ongoing development of digital voice modes.” said Bryan Hoyer, K7UDR, CEO of NW Digital Radio.
HF D-STAR is a growing mode with daily nets on all bands from 80-6 meters, as well as local VHF/UHF simplex and repeater networks. For more information about HF D-STAR net operations please visit D-STAR HF Net
A real-time HF QSO finder can be found at HF D-STAR QSO Finder
The NW Digital Radio ThumbDV digital voice dongle will be available directly from FlexRadio Systems®, as well as from NW Digital Radio.
John Hays (K7VE) from NW Digital Radio and Steve Hicks (N5AC) from FlexRadio, will be available for questions, at the Huntsville Hamfest.
Press Contacts:
John Hays, Director, NW Digital Radio, k7ve@nwdigitalradio.com
Lori Hicks, Director Marketing Communications, FlexRadio Systems®, lori@flexradio.com
D-STAR is an open standard developed by the Japanese Amateur Radio League (JARL) under a grant from the Japanese Government
D-STAR is a wordmark of Icom Inc., in the United States and certain other countries.
AMBE-3000 technology is developed and licensed by Digital Voice Systems Incorporated.
All other trademarks are registered to their respective owners.
Jeremy McDermond, NH6Z, undertook writing a native application for Mac OS® and it is now available on the Mac App Store.
Buster is not a product of NW Digital Radio and support requests should go directly to Jeremy.
Jeremy has stated that the source code will be made publicly available via GitHub and he is open to collaboration for future versions.
It works with a ThumbDV on a Mac OS® USB port and with AMBEserver, locally or over a network. AMBEserver can support either the ThumbDV or PiDV.
This application has been in beta for several months and is both stable and feature rich. It takes advantage of several Mac OS® specific services. For example, it will use Apple Core Location service to determine your current location and reports it via D-STAR. It also provides mapping of remote stations who are reporting position.
There is one known issue: The way that Mac OS® powers USB ports during its sleep state may cause communication issues with the the ThumbDV upon wake up. Most casual users will not experience this condition. The condition is resolved by removing and re-inserting the ThumbDV into the USB port. Linux and Microsoft Windows sleep state does not exhibit this condition. Since FTDI USB drivers are not written by NW Digital Radio, buyers of the ThumbDV should consider this when making a purchase decision.
If you have a low latency and responsive Internet connection, you can place an AMBEserver directly on the Internet and access it remotely through Buster, DummyRepeater, or any other program that provides AMBEserver connectivity.
Raspberry Pi with PiDV and ThumbDV
The first step is to connect a PiDV to the GPIO of a Raspberry Pi or a ThumbDV to the USB port of a computer which will run the AMBEserver. A Raspberry Pi is more than sufficient for this task and provides an economical platform for AMBEserver, however, the choice of computer is up to you. Follow the directions on this page (updated instructions on the wiki) for a Raspberry Pi build and configuration.
Once you have built your AMBEserver, verify that it is working with the included Python scripts, ‘ambesocktest.py’ will test the UDP socket, it returns the AMBE-3000 model number repetitively until killed (with control-C) if the daemon is functioning properly on port 2460.
On your local network, configure Buster or DummyRepeater to access the AMBEserver on the LAN IP address of your AMBEserver. When you have a working AMBEserver, then it is time to make it available outside your LAN.
Buster Preferences for AMBEserver
DummyRepeater Preferences for AMBEserver
Since there are a variety of routers/firewalls/modems that connect you to your ISP it is beyond the scope of this article to provide specific instructions, but all that is required is to forward an external port (default 2460) on your public IP to the LAN IP address of your AMBEserver (e.g. 192.168.0.5) at the designated port (default 2460). You may want to choose a different UDP port in your AMBEserver and for your public facing IP address. If you use the same port for both, then you most likely can configure Buster or DummyRepeater once for use at home and away by using your public IP address (replace the LAN IP address or Localhost IP Address).
Now take your Buster or DummyRepeater system to a remote location and test accessing AMBEserver over the Internet using your public IP address.
Update: The PiDV is not currently in production. Check out BlueDV for Windows and BlueDV for Android at http://www.pa7lim.nl/bluedv — the latest BlueDV for Android can use AMBEserver.
As of today our asian suppliers are back on line, so we should be able to fulfill DRAWS Backorders in March.
Our Case supplier is also back and we have final prototypes coming shortly.
The ThumbDV is in stock.
Thanks for your patience,
Bryan K7UDR
Sample Cases have shipped and will be here next week. We have moved into our new facility and are ready when DRAWS Boards arrive later this month.
ThumbDVs are in stock.
Subscribe to the blog to receive updates.
The “Stay at Home” order by Governor Inslee of Washington State, has impacted some of our vendors, delaying the DRAWS run. We will keep you apprised.
So it’s time for a sale on the ThumbDV !
Might as well contact Hams on the reflectors using DSTAR, DMR or Fusion from your PC at home.
Normally $119.95, on Sale NOW for $99.95 at least until the order is lifted, or we run out of inventory.
Price Protection Policy: If you ordered a ThumbDV in the last 30 days, email sales@nwdigitalradio.com for a $20 refund.
When we started the sale back in March, it was until the Stay at Home Order was lifted or we ran out of inventory.
Due to high sales, we are now out of stock. A new build was initiated last week, so we’re going to extend the sale!
Normally $119.95, on Sale NOW for $99.95 until the order is lifted.
We expect the next build to arrive by the end of May.
ThumbDV
shipped from the assembly house. Customer shipments Monday!
DRAWS Had a PCB Fab error and was re-run. We’ll keep you posted.
We’re officially in Phase 2 here in San Juan County WA. So today is the last day of the “stay at Home” sale. We have 25 left in stock.
ThumbDV backorders are being shipped this week.
ThumbDV is in stock!
DRAWS Boards are in the ASSY Queue, still waiting on a few components.
DRAWS Cases should receive approval this week.
Attention All Hams Using Raspberry Pi For Ham Radio:
All other Prefixes download here: https://bit.ly/HamPi_1_
If you run into issues, please post to the forum on https://groups.io/g/
Good luck and 73!
—
A new install process for both end users and image builders can be found at ambeserver-install on Github.
This install is simple and straightforward. It builds and installs a fresh copy of AMBEserver. It will also add a new file descriptor /dev/ThumbDV when your ThumbDV is plugged into a USB port. Programs, including AMBEserver can then find the ThumbDV regardless of any other /dev/ttyUSBx devices you may have installed.
Systemd service files and ambeserver configuration files are also provided.
Buster, the DSTAR app for MacOS using the ThumbDV, has been updated to work with Catalina and is available on the App Store.
Thanks to Annaliese McDermond, NH6Z, with help from the open source community.
The latest run of the ThumbDV has run into component availability issues with oscillators showing 20 week lead time. We have sourced an alternate programmable oscillator which is being qualified now. Assuming all goes well, we will be shipping first week of December.
UPDATE: The new oscillators passed qualification and the assembly run is scheduled to ship to us on or before Dec 4th. We’ll ship all of the backorders as soon as they arrive.
The ThumbDV is out of stock due to long lead times on components. We estimate availability mid April.
We are not accepting backorders, but have a large quantity in process so it shouldn’t be an issue.
