4454 is my station. After a couple of passes there are no files in that directory. Should there be?
Do the items below have to be set in satnogs-setup for monitor to work? If enabled must be set, what is the setting, “Yes”, or “yes” or “y” or something else?
SATNOGS_ARTIFACTS_ENABLED
SATNOGS_ARTIFACTS_API_TOKEN
If “enabled”must be set then I assume the TOKEN also must be set. Is that correct?
Should the waterfall or spectrum be visible at my local station during the pass? If not, are they visible at network.satnogs.org during the pass or perhaps do the get uploaded from my station after the pass?
And one more question. When there is a pass in progress and monitor is running, how can I tell if I am receiving anything? How can I tell my station is working?
If you enable UDP dump in your client, then the satnogs monitor can show the live waterfall.
Set these variables: ENABLE_IQ_DUMP=True IQ_DUMP_FILENAME=/tmp/satnogs.raw
Then open the monitor config file:
nano ~/.config/satnogs-monitor/config.toml
and edit the variables there
# enable spectrum plot spectrum_plot = true # # enable waterfall (you'll need a true color terminal) waterfall = true
After that I run the monitor with this line for my station 4386:
~/.cargo/bin/cargo run --release -- -s 4386
I’m not using the artifacts variables, you don’t need them for the monitor. The data files in the /tmp/.satnogs folder get deleted after each pass, so they don’t accumulate. During the passes there are new files there, you should be able to see them if the station is set up properly.
In my case(manual install, not Docker), I can look at the service log file to see what is happening inside satnogs-client:
sudo journalctl -u satnogs-client.service -f
In Docker you can also see the log of the container. My log contains lines like these for a successful observation:
Jan 08 04:32:02 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.observer.observer Begin observation 13160486 ... Jan 08 04:32:03 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.observer.worker Rotator inverting set to: True J Jan 08 04:32:04 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.observer.observer Start gnuradio thread. Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: rig_check_rig_caps: p1=0x7f854f0640, p2=0x7f854f6bc0, rig_model=0x7f854f0640, macro_name=0x7f854f6bc0 Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: initrigs4_dummy: _init called Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: rig_init: rig_model=Hamlib NET rigctl Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: rig_init: rx_range_list1 is empty, using rx_range_list2 Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: rig_init: rig does not have tx_range!! Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: netrigctl_init version 20230106.0 Jan 08 04:32:08 PiGND bash[806055]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner Jan 08 04:32:09 PiGND bash[806055]: [INFO] Opening Generic RTL2832U OEM :: UHF001... Jan 08 04:32:09 PiGND bash[806055]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner Jan 08 04:32:09 PiGND bash[806055]: [R82XX] PLL not locked! Jan 08 04:32:10 PiGND bash[806055]: [INFO] Using format CF32. Jan 08 04:32:10 PiGND bash[806055]: Allocating 15 zero-copy buffers Jan 08 04:37:10 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:37:11 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:37:11 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:37:12 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:37:13 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:37:14 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:37:14 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:40:10 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload successful. Jan 08 04:41:51 PiGND bash[806055]: netrigctl_close: done Jan 08 04:41:51 PiGND bash[578892]: netrigctl_close: done Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.observer.observer Observation 13160486 finished. Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[578892]: INFO satnogsclient.observer.observer Executing post-observation script. Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[806819]: 4386 13160487 2026-01-08T04:09:38Z 2026-01-08T04:19:19Z 62394 273 126 35 future 0 Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[806819]: 4386 13160487 2026-01-08T04:09:38Z 2026-01-08T04:19:19Z 62394 273 126 35 future 0 Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[806819]: Next observation: ID=13160487 NORAD=62394 Start=2026-01-08T04:09:38Z Azimuth=273 Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[806819]: 1767845378 1767845959 Jan 08 04:41:54 PiGND bash[806819]: /var/local/tle/62394.tle Jan 08 04:41:55 PiGND bash[806839]: CROCUBE Jan 08 04:41:55 PiGND bash[806839]: 1 62394U 24247T 26007.18231436 .00029168 00000+0 79876-3 0 9991 Jan 08 04:41:55 PiGND bash[806839]: 2 62394 44.9793 79.1866 0004312 289.4979 70.5441 15.36859091 58480 Jan 08 04:41:57 PiGND bash[806819]: Rotating antenna to 273 0... Jan 08 04:41:57 PiGND bash[807146]: RPRT 0 Jan 08 04:41:57 PiGND bash[806819]: Next observation starts in 1661 seconds Jan 08 04:41:57 PiGND bash[806819]: Waiting 70 seconds for rotator to finish... Jan 08 04:43:07 PiGND bash[806819]: Disabling GPIO 2 Jan 08 04:43:07 PiGND bash[806819]: Preparation complete.