Search results for: satnogs

Build a Cubesat Reviews a Discovery Drive Prototype and Sets up SatNOGS

Over on YouTube Manuel from the 'Build a Cubesat' channel has uploaded a video testing a prototype version of our Discovery Drive antenna rotator. If you are unaware, Discovery Drive is our new antenna rotator product for applications like satellite tracking and general antenna positioning that is currently being crowd-funded over on Crowd Supply. There are two days left in the campaign.

In the video, Manuel overviews the Discovery Drive, shows the internals, and walks us through the web UI. He goes on to show how it can be set up with the SatNOGS project. The SatNOGS project has volunteers set up ground-based satellite stations, and anyone can use those stations to log an observation anywhere in the world.

We note that he mentioned some trouble with getting SatNOGS to rotate the Discovery Drive over zenith. We have added a note to our Wiki showing how this can be fixed by specifying the correct rotational limits for the Discovery Drive.

Discovery Drive Antenna Rotator Preview

A Seminar on Setting up and Understanding a SatNOGS Satellite Ground Station

At the 2019 TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC), Corey Shields (KB9JHU) and Dan White (AD0CQ) presented a comprehensive guide on setting up your own SatNOGS satellite ground receiver station. The video of the presentation has just recently been uploaded to YouTube by Ham Radio 2.0.

SatNOGS is an open source project that aims to make it easy for volunteers to build and run satellite ground stations (typically based on RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi hardware) that automatically receive RF satellite data, and automatically upload that data to the internet for public access. This is very useful for low budget cubesats launched by schools and small organizations who don't have the resources to run a worldwide satellite ground station network. Without global ground stations the majority of data and telemetry collected by the satellite could be lost as it would only pass over the owners ground station once or twice a day with limited time and bandwidth to downlink data. SatNOGS volunteers with distributed ground stations placed all over the world provide a free solution for this problem. 

Setting up a SatNOGS station and understanding the data coming down can be a pretty involved project, so Corey and Dan's 3.5 hr presentation gently guides us through the steps required. The guide focuses most on the software side, and does not include information about building their open source Yagi antenna rotator which can be used to receive satellites with lower power weak signals. Instead they focus on using a simpler fixed QFH antenna which is still capable of receiving data from a majority of satellites.

Learn to build and operate your own SatNOGS ground station. The Sunday Seminar is somewhat like the "anchor" topic of the entire weekend of the TAPR Digital Communications Conference. In 2019 we had the privilege of hearing from Corey, KB9JHU and Dan AD0CQ from the SatNOGS Team and they are going to give us, in detail, instructions for setting up a home satellite station.

(2:38) Intro
(7:46) Section 1: Satellite Building 101
(1:14:50) Section 2: Using SatNOGS
(2:19:55) Section 3: API and Contributing
(2:51:55) Section 4: RF Stack and Decoders

SatNOGS Ground Station Building Guide from TAPR DCC 2019

A Wall Mounted SatNOGS Ground Station Monitor

If you weren't already aware,  SatNOGS is an open source project that aims to make it easy for volunteers to build and run RF ground stations (typically based on RTL-SDR hardware) that automatically monitor satellite data, and upload that data to the internet for public access. This is very useful for low budget cubesats launched by schools/small organizations that don't have the resources for a worldwide monitoring network as data can be collected from all over the world no matter where the satellite is.

Over on the SatNOGS Libre Space forums, user cshields have posted about his near wall mounted SatNOGS monitoring station. With the station he's able to monitor the status of his SatNOGS station via an LCD screen and see the location of satellites that next in the queue to be received. There are also some status lights and LCD text screen for monitoring the SatNOGS rotator hardware.

The station consists of a Raspberry Pi 4, 7" LCD display, 500 GB SSD, RTL-SDR Blog V3, and an Arduino with 16x2 LCD and NeoPixel. cshields post covers the full details of the build.

[Also seen on Hackaday]

SatNOGS Ground Station Monitor
SatNOGS Ground Station Monitor

HackSpace Magazine Discusses SatNOGS, Cubesats and More

HackSpace is a monthly magazine dedicated to modern maker projects. This month issue 18 was released and it focuses on space based projects. The HackSpace Magazine is available for free online in PDF form, and physical copies can also be purchased.  There are several interesting articles but one in particular shows us how to set up a SatNOGS ground station with a Raspberry Pi 3, RTL-SDR and a satellite antenna such as a turnstile. 

A problem with low cost satellites like cubesats is that it is difficult to monitor them as data can only be collected when they are passing over a ground station. So in areas with no ground stations data is simply lost. SatNOGS is an open source project that aims to make it easy for volunteers to build and run RF ground stations that automatically monitor satellite data, and upload that data to the internet for public access. SatNOGS ground stations typically use RTL-SDR dongles as the radio.

A related article in the magazine also discusses cubesats, giving an overview of some previous cubesat launches and what sort of payloads are available. A third article under the space topic discusses the Libre Space Foundation which is the team behind the SatNOGS and various other space based projects that aim to democratize space. Readers may also be interested in the articles showing how to build an ISS countdown timer and how to build a Slim Jim antenna.

HackSpace Magazine SatNOGS Article
HackSpace Magazine SatNOGS Article (Excerpt)

Demonstration of Two SatNOGS Rotators

Thank you to IZ5RZR for writing in and sharing his two SatNOGS rotator builds with us. SatNOGS is an open source project that aims to make it easy for volunteers to build and run RTL-SDR or other SDR based RF ground stations that automatically monitor satellites, and upload that data to the internet for public access.

IZ5RZR writes that he's now made two rotators and one was modified to use a 5:18 stepper motor (which is upgradable to 50:1) to give more torque so that heavier antennas can be turned smoothly. His rotators are powered by a 12V battery charged by solar, and they can be controlled over WiFi with a PC/tablet/phone. He's also tested the rotators with a 24 dB parabolic grid antenna and found that the rotator could handle it even without a counterweight. He also notes that together with IK5XWA they've fixed a "Meridian Flip" bug in the firmware.

The video below shows the two rotators in action.

IZ5RZR Two SatNOGS Satellite Rotators

Using a 25 Meter Radio Dish and an RTL-SDR as a SatNOGS Ground Station

SatNOGS is an open source project that aims to make it easy for volunteers to build and run RTL-SDR or other SDR based RF ground stations that automatically monitor satellites, and upload that data to the internet for public access. The antennas used in a typical home based SatNOGS station are small enough for a single person to handle, however recently the SatNOGS team have been working on setting up a monitoring station at the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory in the Netherlands.

Dwingeloo has a large 25 meter satellite dish antenna, and they connect it to an RTL-SDR on a laptop running the SatNOGS software. In the video they show it tracking the PRISM amateur radio satellite, and note that the use of this large dish will only be used in special circumstances. They write:

This week the Dwingelooradio Observatory tested their 25 meter dish as a SatNOGS station! Although not set up as a permanent SatNOGS station it is great to see this historic observatory linked to the network. Dwingeloo radio observatory was built between 1954 and 1956 near the village of Dwingeloo in the Netherlands. Since 2009 this single 25 meter dish has been a national heritage site.

Dwingeloo Radio Observatory as a SatNOGS 📡 station

Dwingleloo Satellite Antenna in the Netherlands
Dwingleloo Satellite Antenna in the Netherlands [Source: Wikipedia]

Art from Satellite Transmissions: SatNOGS and Software Defined Radio used in a Sound Art Installation

One of the piezo speakers playing the satellite transmissions.
One of the piezo speakers playing the satellite transmissions.

In the past we've seen software defined radio's like the HackRF use to create art installations such as the 'Holypager', which was an art project that aimed to draw attention to the breach of privacy caused by pagers used by doctors and staff at hospitals.

Recently another art installation involving a software defined radio was exhibited at Wichita State University. The project by artist Nicholas A. Knouf is called "they transmitted continuously / but our times rarely aligned / and their signals dissipated in the æther" and it aims to collect the sounds of various satellite transmissions, and play them back using small piezo speakers in the art gallery. To do this he built a SatNOGS receiver and used a software defined radio to capture the audio. He doesn't mention which SDR was used, but most commonly RTL-SDR's are used with the SatNOGS project. Nicholas describes the project below:

This 20-channel sound installation represents the results of collecting hundreds of transmissions from satellites orbiting the earth. Using custom antennas that I built from scratch, I tracked the orbits and frequencies of satellites using specialized software. This software then allows me to collect the radio frequency signals and translate them into sound.

The open source software and hardware, called SatNOGS and developed by a world-wide group of satellite enthusiasts, enables anyone to build a ground station for tracking satellites and their transmissions, which are then uploaded to a publicly accessable database. Data received by my ground stations can be found here. These transmissions are mostly from weather satellites, CubeSats (small satellites launched by universities world-wide for short-term research), or amateur radio repeaters (satellites designed for ham radio operators to experiment with communication over long distances).

I made the speakers hanging from the grid from a piezoelectric element embedded between two sheets of handmade abaca paper that was then air dried over a form.

The project was also discussed over on the SatNOGS forum.

The SatNOGS art installation
The SatNOGS art installation

FOSDEM 2017/2018 SDR Conference Videos: Passive Radar, Radio Telescopes, SatNOGS and Wireless Traffic Lights

Fosdem 2017 and 2018 were conferences on software development that occurred on 4 & 5 February 2017 and 3 & 4 February 2018. The conference features several software defined radio and RTL-SDR based talks which appear to have recently been uploaded to YouTube. Below we're posting some of our favorite SDR related talks, but the full video list can be found here, and here is the SDR playlist from Fosdem 2018.

(Yet another) passive RADAR using DVB-T receiver and SDR

by Jean-Michel Friedt @ FOSDEM 2018

In this presentation Jean-Michel shows a GNU Radio passive radar implementation utilizing two coherent RTL-SDR dongles. During the talk he demonstrates his results with RTL-SDR passive radar operating on planes, boats and cars.

Slides: http://jmfriedt.free.fr/fosdem2018.pdf
Paper: http://jmfriedt.free.fr/URSI.pdf

(Yet another) passive RADAR using DVB-T receiver and SDR.

Intro to Open Source Radio Telescopes

by Martin Braun and Sue Ann Heatherly @ FOSDEM 2018

In this talk Martin and Sue discuss how amateur radio astronomy can be performed using lost cost software defined radio tools such as an RTL-SDR. They show how to receive solar flares and detect the 21cm hydrogen line and focus on showing how easy it can be to do these projects in a classroom environment.

Intro to Open Source Radio Telescopes

Claim Space, the Libre Way, using SDRs

by Manolis Surligas @ FOSDEM 2018

In this talk Manolis from the Libre Space Foundation and SatNOGs discusses how they use RTL-SDR's and other SDR's in their volunteer run network of satellite ground stations to create an online database of received satellite data.

Claim Space, the Libre Way, using SDRs

Receiving Wireless Mobile Traffic Lights

by Bastian Bloessl @ FOSDEM 2017

Wireless mobile traffic lights are often used to secure construction sites when roads are partially blocked. Some day, when a pair of them was placed close to our home, I set off to explore how they are working. In this talk, I will describe how I used a cheap RTL-SDR together with GQRX, Inspectrum, and GNU Radio to reverse engineer the modulation and frame format of different types of wireless traffic lights. With some patience, I could also make some sense out of the bits. In particular, I was able to extract the signal state and display it in a web interface, mirroring the traffic light. A closer look at the frame format and the apparent absence of any authentication might leave one with a bit of a worrying impression regarding the security of those systems.

Receiving Wireless Mobile Traffic Lights