SATNOGS in isolated area

Anybody thought of adding solar for power and iridium modem for satnogs station in an isolated area?

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That should be really straighforward.

For that although it might be easy to setup, the cost of running it would be really high.

Do you have something specific in mind?

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Hi Pierros,

I was just thinking outside the box :wink: to get coverage where we dont have coverage yet.

Maybe need to look at how we can get bandwidth lower or look at more distributed system so data is stored at the system till you have access. Maybe eshailsat can also be used?

Just and idea to get people thinking, the clever or more practical people might have some solutions?

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At the AMSAT Symposium a few weeks back, W2BFJ (/stations/12) gave a presentation on deploying foxtelem kits and getting global coverageā€¦ Obviously, Antarctica was brought up as a ā€œwould love to have this!ā€.

Got me thinking a lot about what we would do if we were given a chance at a ground station in Antarctica. Bandwidth (iridium) is at a premium there. Would we disable the uploading of the .ogg files and stick with waterfall and decoded data? I think there would be a strong argument for that. Weā€™re decoding enough satellites now where that would be very beneficial.

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Is anyone working to get satnogs nodes into Africa? Iā€™d be up for helping if anyone isā€¦

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There isnā€™t anything active currently. It would be nice to try if there are any contacts with universities or radio amateur clubs or individuals.

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Perhaps you can use the Starlink network for this when it becomes fully operational. Or depending how remote, you could use a cellular modem.

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Hey,
I live at 78 degrees N, Svalbard. We have the largest civilian satellite groundstation here in town.

I have been playing with the thought of building a ground station for a long time but I am a novice in almost all the fields of this build. I would like to build a directional antenna and just wanted to hear if there are people that would like to give me some extra help or help out with the equipment for a station in this remote place.

I have access to a 3D printer, I know soldering and have some arduino unos and 2 currently unused raspberry pi 3 model B v1.2 laying around.

Regards
Ti-Time

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Hey @ti-time, welcome to our community! Iā€™ve sent you a message to see how we can help :slight_smile:

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Hi @ti-time,
IMO, considering the climatic conditions there, I believe that a patch antenna system could be a good solution for both the VHF and UHF bands.

Take a look at this paper [https://orbanmicrowave.com/the-basics-of-patch-antennas/] , that is a good starting point.

Also this [https://vk6ysf.com/patch_Antenna_435MHz.htm] itā€™s really interesting, maybe making a single antenna; scaling to other ferquency itā€™s simple.

Iā€™m looking to do some test in this field, but no much time at presentā€¦

de I3VFJ, Vittorio

For Africa we could imaging using Esā€™Hail2 in some way for the communication. Esā€™Hail2 communication would of course only occure between observations. The issues would be

  • A specific protocol would be needed instead of a plain internet connection
  • There might be a legal issue or special authorization needed to operate an ā€˜automatic stationā€™
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As for Antarctica, DP0GVN (German Antarctic station Neumayer III) have a WSPR project there and very active online. So, you can contact them and ask, if is it possible to set up SATNOGS station as well.

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Paging our German friends here: @kerel @DL4PD . Can you reach out please?

I know from Peter, @db2os, that they have a FunCube station already setup there - maybe Peter can give us an idea on how realistic this could be.

Yes, Iā€™m hereā€¦ :wink:

I will try to give some insights regarding Antarctica laterā€¦

Peter

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