SatNOGS Groundstation: no receptions

SatNOGS Software
1

After setting up my SatNOGS groundstation it first received regularly, but after some time the waterfall showed no signals at all, the audio file holds only white noise.

I’ve tried some troubleshooting, also

$ satnogs_afsk1200_ax25.py --soapy-rx-device=“driver=rtlsdr” --antenna=RX --samp-rate-rx=2.048e6 --rx-freq=444000000 --file-path=./audio-out.ogg --waterfall-file-path=./waterfall.dat

what produces an audio file with only white noise. I should hear some 1k2 AFSK signals, right?
What does that mean?

And journalctl -u satnogs-client.service produces these error messages:
satnogs-client.service-error.txt (4.5 KB)

Daniel, dl7ndr

2

Using your shared observation link, I get the following with the help of gr-satellites.

gr_satellites 47952 --wavfile 9825857.ogg --samp_rate 48e3

-> Packet from 2k4 FSK downlink
Container: 
    header = Container: 
        addresses = ListContainer: 
            Container: 
                callsign = u'R2ANF' (total 5)
                ssid = Container: 
                    ch = False
                    ssid = 0
                    extension = False
            Container: 
                callsign = u'RS13S' (total 5)
                ssid = Container: 
                    ch = False
                    ssid = 4
                    extension = True
        control = 0x00
        pid = 0xF0
    info = b'\x16B\x02\x00\x01\x00B\x00M\x05\x1a\x12\xc1\x05f\x04.\x01\x95\x02\x8a\x00\x00\x00\x1e\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xfc\xff\xfe\xff\xff\xff\xfd\xff\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x1fh\xb6\x00\x00\xadX\x8ef\x1a\x04\x04\x05\xff}"\x10\xe2\x0e\xaeX\x8ef:\xb6\x00\x00\x1e\x00\x1c\x1f' (total 74)

This modulation (USP) isn’t supported natively by SatNOGS.

Looking at your journal log, this is a bug after the initial satnogs client startup and “normal” maybe you can also share a real observation and the output from sudo satnogs-setup → Advanced → Support.

3

By this observation I just wanted to show, that the waterfall shows signals, unlike the other one. Currently, it’s still about receptions, not about decodations.

What do you mean by “real observation”?

advanced support.txt (1.9 KB)

4

as an example:

Dec 19 17:10:47 madrid satnogs-client[52517]: gr-satellites: Observation: 10792388, Norad: 60237, Name: 0_OBJECT_C, Script: satnogs_fsk.py
Dec 19 17:10:47 madrid satnogs-client[52517]: gr-satellites: Starting observation 10792388
Dec 19 17:10:47 madrid satnogs-client[52517]: gr-satellites: running at 57600 sps
Dec 19 17:10:47 madrid satnogs-client[4737]: rig_init: rig does not have rx_range!!
Dec 19 17:10:47 madrid satnogs-client[4737]: network_open: hoststr=127.0.0.1, portstr=4532
Dec 19 17:10:49 madrid satnogs-client[52556]: Found Rafael Micro R820T/2 tuner
Dec 19 17:10:49 madrid satnogs-client[52556]: Found Rafael Micro R820T/2 tuner
Dec 19 17:10:49 madrid satnogs-client[52556]: [INFO] Opening Generic RTL2832U OEM :: 00001220...
Dec 19 17:10:49 madrid satnogs-client[52556]: Found Rafael Micro R820T/2 tuner
Dec 19 17:10:50 madrid satnogs-client[52556]: [INFO] Using format CF32.
Dec 19 17:10:50 madrid satnogs-client[52556]: Allocating 15 zero-copy buffers
Dec 19 17:17:19 madrid satnogs-client[4737]: netrigctl_close: done status=Command completed successfully
Dec 19 17:17:21 madrid satnogs-client[52671]: gr-satellites: Observation: 10792388, Norad: 60237, Name: 0_OBJECT_C, Script: satnogs_fsk.py
Dec 19 17:17:21 madrid satnogs-client[52671]: gr-satellites: Stopping observation 10792388
Dec 19 17:17:21 madrid satnogs-client[52671]: gr-satellites: processing KISS data to network
Dec 19 17:17:29 madrid satnogs-client[52709]:   adding: iq_57600_10792388.raw (deflated 23%)
Dec 19 17:17:31 madrid satnogs-client[52709]: test of /import/group/raw/iq_57600_10792388.raw.zip OK
Dec 19 17:39:00 madrid satnogs-client[52859]: gr-satellites: Observation: 10792564, Norad: 41789, Name: 0_ALSAT_1N, Script: satnogs_fsk.py
Dec 19 17:39:00 madrid satnogs-client[52859]: gr-satellites: Satellite not supported
Dec 19 17:39:00 madrid satnogs-client[4737]: rig_init: rig does not have rx_range!!
Dec 19 17:39:00 madrid satnogs-client[4737]: network_open: hoststr=127.0.0.1, portstr=4532
Dec 19 17:39:01 madrid satnogs-client[52876]: Found Rafael Micro R820T/2 tuner
Dec 19 17:39:02 madrid satnogs-client[52876]: Found Rafael Micro R820T/2 tuner
Dec 19 17:39:02 madrid satnogs-client[52876]: [INFO] Opening Generic RTL2832U OEM :: 00001220...
Dec 19 17:39:02 madrid satnogs-client[52876]: Found Rafael Micro R820T/2 tuner
Dec 19 17:39:02 madrid satnogs-client[52876]: [INFO] Using format CF32.
Dec 19 17:39:03 madrid satnogs-client[52876]: Allocating 15 zero-copy buffers
Dec 19 17:46:35 madrid satnogs-client[4737]: netrigctl_close: done status=Command completed successfully
Dec 19 17:46:37 madrid satnogs-client[52971]: gr-satellites: Observation: 10792564, Norad: 41789, Name: 0_ALSAT_1N, Script: satnogs_fsk.py
Dec 19 17:46:46 madrid satnogs-client[53007]:   adding: iq_57600_10792564.raw (deflated 23%)
Dec 19 17:46:48 madrid satnogs-client[53007]: test of /import/group/raw/iq_57600_10792564.raw.zip OK
5

real observation.txt (2.4 KB)

This is from SatNOGS Network - Observation 9825857

6

All config and output seems oke.

One last option, save IQ files from observations, replay them and see if there was information send during the observation, if there isn’t, maybe a RF chain hardware problem.

1 Like
7

I decided to reinstall the complete software image on the Raspberry Pi.

Now, even with all the settings taken from the installation before, the connection between my station and SatNOGS network has gone.

Additionally, there are now two different errors:

For Software package settings - EXPERIMENTAL = False it’s

Install PyPI dependencies...
  Retrying... (1 of 4)
  Retrying... (2 of 4)
  Retrying... (3 of 4)
  localhost failed | msg: stdout: Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://www.piwheels.org/simple

Software package settings - EXPERIMENTAL = False.txt (4.3 KB)

and for Software package settings - EXPERIMENTAL = True it’s (additionally)

Failed to build satnogs-config

:stderr:   Running command git clone -q https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/satnogs-config.git /tmp/pip-req-build-j0pypc1e
  Running command git submodule update --init --recursive -q
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /var/lib/satnogs-config/bin/python /tmp/tmpiaw_363n_in_process.py build_wheel /tmp/tmp19h40zue
       cwd: /tmp/pip-req-build-j0pypc1e

Software package settings - EXPERIMENTAL = True.txt (7.1 KB)

8

Hi Daniel,
first one looks like a prebuilt python package is no longer available, just a guess.
the second one, with experimental, probably leads to a mixed setup as the master branch is aimed at the dockerized client.

if you want to you can try the new stack, it will uninstall the host based client and install the dockerized one instead. do note that it does work, but it lacks a few details like the pre-/post script for now.
curl -sLf https://satno.gs/install | sudo sh -s -- -C master

1 Like
9

Thank you, Daniel.

I ran the command and the station came back online.

Will schedule some observations to see if it works now.

10

Still nothing on the waterfall.

11

well, it has a waterfall at least (:
note that you need to specify the master branch when running satnogs-setup again (before it is released as stable): sudo satnogs-setup -C master
to see the client logs: sudo docker logs -f -n 100 -t satnogs_satnogs-client

1 Like