
Gr-satellites – A collection of GNUradio decoders for satellite telemetry - wolframio
http://destevez.net/2016/08/introducing-gr-satellites/
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dvdplm
This looks neat, but for a total GNURadion/Satellite telemetry n00b, is there
a birds-eyes overview on this stuff you recommend?

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ChuckMcM
For gnu radio or for satellites?

There are lots of web tutorials for SDR using gnu radio, I really like the one
Mike Ossman does on the Great Scott Gadgets site[1]. My evolution was one of
the cheap digital TV dongles, then a HackRF-1, and at some point next a
LimeSDR.

Once you get the SDR side of things under your belt you can start picking
specific radio sources to investigate whether it is sun spots, satellites, or
something more mundane like the controls for R/C cars, garage doors, or
wireless lights.

[1] [http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/](http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/)

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dvdplm
SDR and GNURadio, seems like the best first step! Thanks!

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mindcrime
I just bought a RTL-SDR dongle and installed GNURadio about a week ago. So far
I've gotten a basic FM (broadcast radio) receiver going, and am starting to
port that over to narrow-band FM (so I can use it with my ham radio) and am
looking at how to integrate a DTMF decoder. It's really fun stuff, and not
very expensive to get started with the low end SDR hardware. I think my device
cost me about $25.00 (USD) from a vendor on Amazon.

I haven't gotten as far as doing any of the satellite stuff yet, but that's on
the list for "real soon now".

If you're thinking about taking the plunge, I'd definitely encourage you to do
it.

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anarcat
That's awesome! Now I want that on my phone so i have a real tricorder. ;)

A random example of things you can get from there is the 3CAT-2 satellite
which has a "magnetometer", "reflectometry" which includes targets like
"altitude maps of the Earth, wind surface over the sea, deforestation..."

[https://nanosatlab.upc.edu/en/missions-and-
projects/3cat-2](https://nanosatlab.upc.edu/en/missions-and-projects/3cat-2)

The README file has more examples: [https://github.com/daniestevez/gr-
satellites](https://github.com/daniestevez/gr-satellites)

Pretty cool stuff, to think all that is all readable up there for anyone.

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executesorder66
> The goal of this project is to make a collection of GNUradio decoders for
> the telemetry of different satellites. The decoders support submitting
> telemetry in real time to the PE0SAT telemetry server. Another goal is that
> the decoders are as easy to use as possible, to try to make more people
> interested in receiving digital telemetry from satellites and collaborating
> in online telemetry submission.

I don't know much about satellites. Is this data not collected by whoever owns
the satellites? How does it help if volunteers collect this data?

This looks like a really cool project though, and I'd like to contribute once
I've learned some more about it.

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anarcat
One of the major challenges in managing satellites into space is the long term
commitment: getting it up there is a one time cost, it can be high, for sure,
but it can be managed, and is getting cheaper.

The real challenge is having base stations to collect the precious signals you
want to receive in the first place. To get continuous input, you need stations
all over the planet, something only empire-level states can usually
accomplish. Now imagine you have a satellite that is in geosynchronous orbit
that needs to be also _sent_ instructions about how to reposition itself, and
you have a real challenge on your hands.

The idea is that we can leverage free software, hacker and ham communities to
collect data. It is a distributed and decentralised community that is highly
skilled and can perform such data collection fairly well, given the proper
tools and equipment. It's not yet _sending_ data to satellite, as far as I
know, but it's a nice first step.

As for property of data, I guess those are public projects, and therefore it
is public data... As an example, all NASA output is public domain, by
principle.

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JoeAltmaier
So, if I launch an open communications satellite (or ring of satellites) to
relay messages for other satellites to my ground station, I could enable a
whole new industry? Food for thought.

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jpitz
Not a new one, no. NASA has been doing this for decades.

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JoeAltmaier
But does NASA sell the service? I could, with a ring of micro-sats.

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jpitz
They do, and they are gearing up to handle more customers.

[http://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space-
communications/sgss.html](http://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space-
communications/sgss.html)

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JoeDaDude
Nice work! I speculate this could be useful to the SATNOGS project [1], the
open source satellite ground station network. [1].
[https://satnogs.org/](https://satnogs.org/)

