Ham Radio Workbench Podcast Episodes

HRWB 178 - Building a SatNOGS Satellite Ground Station with Ben AI6YR

4/4/2023

SHOW NOTES

Morse Tutor Kits
https://www.ve6lk.com

Remote AC power relay
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14236

PackTenna
www.packtenna.com

Connect Systems
https://www.connectsystems.com/amateur.html

CSI CS800D DMR/FM mobile
https://www.connectsystems.com/products/top/radios/CS800D.htm

Build your own Egg Beater Antenna
https://www.radioenthusiast.co.uk/news/feature-build-your-own-satellite-antenna

SatNOGs Wiki
https://docs.satnogs.org/projects/satnogs-network/en/stable/installation.html#id1

Containers vs VM’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyNBf1sqdBQ

SatNOGS Network - create an account on this page to “listen” in
https://network.satnogs.org/

How a Photo Miraculously Helped Rescue a Missing Hiker - YouTube Palmdale hiker found safe after going missing in Angeles National Forest | ABC7 - YouTube

How Social Media, The Internet, and Ham Radio Saved The Day After Hurricane Maria In Dominica
https://www.facebook.com/HurricaneMariaDARCI/posts/2000861560180505/

HB9VQQ runs a Solar Indices and Ham Radio Propagation page based on Grafana - that’s what Vince recognized
https://grafana.gafner.net/d/kAZyp6bMz/solar-indices-and-ham-radio-propagation?orgId=1

The backstory behind Ben and the lost hiker
How a Photo Miraculously Helped Rescue a Missing Hiker - YouTube
Palmdale hiker found safe after going missing in Angeles National Forest | ABC7 - YouTube

How Social Media, The Internet, and Ham Radio Saved The Day After Hurricane Maria In Dominica
https://www.facebook.com/HurricaneMariaDARCI/posts/2000861560180505/

6 Comments

KI7LKB

4/5/2023 20:16:40

Hey Mark. Keep us posted on the antenna project. Sounds interesting; maybe a show topic.

Ed Durrant link

4/19/2023 09:47:09

2-element Single Mast Wire Beam with 4 Switchable Directions
https://www.lz1aq.signacor.com/docs/2-element-single-mast-wire-beam.php

The original DK3BA QST article (6-way) doesn't seem to be reachable on the web any more YMMV.
73 Ed.

Ed Durrant link

4/21/2023 04:34:36

Found the 6-way article - it is available as a PDF here: https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/images/hft/abuelhaija_inverted_v_wire_yagi.pdf

Also there is a description (in German) of the antennas installation and operation here: https://www.uni-due.de/hft/amateurfunk.php

73 Ed.

fredy link

4/9/2023 23:57:48

Hi, I'm one of the developers and operators of SatNOGS project.

It is awesome hearing one of the SatNOGS contributors share his experience in so enthusiastic way.

Thank you all!

Below are some details, comments and clarifications about the project that I would like to add while I was listening your podcast:

1) SatNOGS is a project of Libre Space Foundation(LSF), a non-profit organization that develops open-source(hardware, software, data) technologies for space.

2) TX vs RX

Indeed, SatNOGS project started as a Network of stations that perform only RX, however we have experimented with TX capabilities and we plan to integrate them into SatNOGS project in the next months in order to support LSF's and others' satellite missions.

3) If there are other stations nearby my location, should I build a station?

Even if there are other stations in your area it is useful to build a station as you may cover other frequency bands or your station could be a backup when the other station are getting offline. Furthermore it is not rare more than one satellites pass over an area, so more stations allow more satellites to be tracked and observed at the same time.

4) Scheduling observations clarification

While anyone can access the results of the observations as they are open, scheduling is limited to only station owners that have an online station. This is the way to make sure that the Network will grow and that there will be a fair use of the stations. In other words, you share your station time and you can get time on other stations.

5) Bandwidth needed

The biggest need is when the station uploads the results to the Network, currently results per observation are audio (~10-15MB), waterfall (~1.5MB), data (~10-100KB). However the audio uploading can be omitted if you set it in the configuration reducing a lot the necessary bandwidth.

6) Far future scheduling

I would like also to add the we prevent far future scheduling in order to avoid inaccurate tracking of the satellites. The orbit parameters (aka TLE set) are calculated with accuracy for a specific point in time for each satellite. Going farther from this point and using the same parameters will not describe the orbit accuratelly, resulting in wrong Doppler corrections and wrong passes calculations. Usually the TLE sets are updated once or twice a day.

7) Users and station owners clarifications

Indeed there are thousands of stations created in the Network site, however not all of them are always online. Currently there are around 400 stations online at any time (some of them in testing mode, some of them fully factional).

About the users (and those that are affected indirectly), we can not have an exact number but we know that there are many entities that use SatNOGS for different purposes. Some of the entities are universities, researchers, organizations, satellite teams, space agencies, scientists, engineers, schools, radio amateurs, space enthusiasts and others.

8) The software is the hardest part

Indeed the software is getting more and more complicated as the project is evovled. A move that made it easier was to build a RPi image that leaves to the user the configuration by following the guide in the wiki page. Still connecting through ssh to a console/command line to setup and configure your station isn't very user friendly, especially for users that are not familiar with Linux. For this reason we are building a new process that will include a graphical user interface (via the user's browser). If everything goes well it will be ready to use in the next weeks.

9) Building a station

The current status is that each user needs to gather all the elements of a station an put them together in order to build it. We want to make this easier, so we working on a station kit solution that will be has all the necessary elements and will be almost ready to use, reducing that way the building time.

10) How someone uses my station?

Our policy on that is that the station owner should have full control of the station that owns. This means that the station owner defines the frequency range of the station, can get it offline or in testing mode whenever wants and delete future observations if needed.

Another thing I want to point out is that no one get access to the actual station, what happens is that the other station owners create jobs/observations for a station and the station itself requests from the Network these jobs/observations in order to perform them.

Finally I would like to add some more links related with the SatNOGS Project:

* The community forum: https://community.libre.space
* The crowdsourced satellite database with all the info about the satellites and their transmitters: https://db.satnogs.org
* The grafana instance where all the satellite dashboards live: https://dashboard.satnogs.org
* The wiki instance where we gather guides and documentation: https://wiki.satnogs.org
* The ohai page where we have some guides for buidling rotators and ante

fredy link

4/9/2023 23:59:35

Adding the missing links:

* The ohai page where we have some guides for buidling rotators and antennas: https://ohai.libre.space
* A wiki page for how to get in touch with the community: https://wiki.satnogs.org/Get_In_Touch
* The repository of all the code, designs, schematics etc. of SatNOGS project: https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/

Kimble Smith (NI7Q) link

4/11/2023 13:59:31

You should try a robotic lawnmower. I just bought one.

HRWB 178 - Building a SatNOGS Satellite Ground Station with Ben AI6YR

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