ColibriDDC'23/24 first look and ops.
Many are familliar (or, at least, heard of) with EE's ColibriDDC. And here is all new ColibriDDC'23/24, fresh, just arrived. There is no intention to impress anyone and I am not even try pretending to be a professional reviewer. I bought this device for myself and my solely purposes, (i.e.I know my targets) and will be reviewing just what I see, practically online, and will tell you if it does meet my expectations.
The new ColibriDDC was first time "revealed" by EE at almost start of 2024 in one of their live streams. What we all heards, that:
- there are plans to start new version production
- HW will be fully renewed
- SW will be unified under ESDR3
- FW will be fully renewed, aligned with other EE devices mainline and feature set
To shortcut the time I just put it next on a right to SunSDR2 DX for a quick size comparisson.
The box is very solid aluminium extrusion; overall device weight is approx 1.2 kg without external wires (antenna cable, power, control, ethernet).
The antenna and 10MHz reference connectors are both SMA type. 30 cm SMA-SO239 (PL259 female) antenna cable-adapter comes with the device. The 1m power cable with connector (ready to solder on another side) also comes with the device.
Embedded connectors should be very familliar to someone already using EE products:
10MHz external reference (SMA), Antenna (SMA), 15-pin external CTRL (same functions as on SunSDR2 DX), 100Mb RJ-45 LAN.
In regards to external power, please note that it is +12V (in comparisson to +5V of previos Colibri version).
Physical Operation controls on another side of the box are Power switch, Power LED, Boot mode and Reset buttons, and 6.3mm Stereo external headphones Socket (note the 3.5mm Stereo Plug Adapter, which comes with the device).
New ColibriDDC for HAM radio purposes operates under ESDR3, minimal version is beta 1.0.9 (WIP, passing last moment tests and will be available for public download soon).
With unified ESDR3 software ecosystem for all EE devices, there is no need anymore to learn dedicated software to operate ColibriDDC; and the feature set to be expected to be equal across the devices (assuming this one is RX only, of course).
The device works under recognisible ESDR3 interface (obviously, for this device as RX-only no TX features displayed)
and has common tunable RX features available:
New ColibriDDC supports Ecoder - plugged in and recognised with no issues:
For the majority of the users the LAN setup is really straight forward (DX manual can be used). Note that device comes out of the box with common preset IP address 192.168.16.200/24, hence if you already have any EE device (say - DX) make sure you set up Colibri with non-conflicting IP first via direct LAN connection to PC.
For those few who have a bit complex home LAN setup, note that device is working perfectly as common LAN endpoint, hence common routable (including to external and via VPN) with you typical setup you may already use for DX.
MAC filtering/forwarding is also supported, here is what device response on ARP:
On mac
~ % arp -a
(10.42.1.201) at 0:ee:6:0:0:1 on en0 ifscope [ethernet]
On switch
#sh arp
10.42.1.201 00ee.0600.0001 ARPA
On Win
arp -a
10.42.1.201 00-ee-06-00-00-01
Please note that the above - is just initial impression and more notes may come further (as soon as start using the device to its full capability).At this stage it looks exactly to what EE was promising and I only may wish good luck and good speed to development Team who are working on ESDR3.
Special and Warm Thank You All in the EE team, who worked really hard to get this device over the line to me :)
