As @SA2KNG mentioned there is a lot that needs response and also up front some updates.
Let me reply to the Airspy part, yes it is a far better SDR then the RTL-SDR but also need some TLC 
For now running a SatNOGS station on a x86 computer you need to use Debian old-stable code name BULLSEYE (Debian 11)
The default install is mainly configured around the use of a RTL-SDR and all the dependencies and configurations are in place.
When you want to use another SDR a couple of dependencies and configuration needs to be in place and sorry to say, one needs some Unix experience.
Up front, you don’t need to add any repositories and I will try and explain the steps needed:
- First we need to make sure the Airspy kernel module isn’t loaded when the SDR is connected, this is done by make sure the following file is present in
/etc/modprobe.d/airspy-blacklist.conf
cat /etc/modprobe.d/airspy-blacklist.conf
#
# Block AirSpy kernel module from loading
#
blacklist airspy
#
There are ways to make sure the module isn’t already loaded and remove it, but for now after creating this file, reboot the system.
- Now we need to make sure
udev - Dynamic device management has the right configuration to recognize the SDR when it is connected. This is done with the help of configuration files in /etc/udev/rules.d for the Airspy Min and R2 is something like 52-airspy.rules
cat /etc/udev/rules.d.52-airspy.rules
ATTR{idVendor}=="1d50", ATTR{idProduct}=="60a1", SYMLINK+="airspy-%k", MODE="660", GROUP="plugdev"
This description is telling us a couple of things and the most important one is, that only the device owner and members of the group plugdev can read and write from this device.
With the command id one can see if he or she is member of this group, below an example:
lab@hostname:~$ id
uid=1002(lab) gid=1002(lab) groups=1002(lab),4(adm),27(sudo),46(plugdev),112(usrp),998(satnogs)
Both the main user of the system and satnogs need to be member of the group plugdev this can be done with the following command: usermod -a -G plugdev satnogs and maybe also for others.
To make sure the group is applied and active, logout and login and check with id if it is now showing. If you are using a graphical user interface, reboot the system.
- The last step to make sure it is working, check if the airspy packages are installed.
To make it possible to do some manual checks, we will install the airspy package and for the SatNOGS Soapy support we will add the airspy soapy driver.
sudo apt-get install airspy
sudo apt-get soapysdr0.7-module-airspy
When this is all done, we can do some basic checks:
After you connected the airspy you would see the following message if you run sudo dmesg -wT
[ 1.874692] usb 2-4: Product: AIRSPY
[ 1.874693] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: www.airspy.com
[ 1.874694] usb 2-4: SerialNumber: AIRSPY SN:466C64C8306B65C7
When this is the case, execute airspy_info and that will show you:
Found AirSpy board 1
Board ID Number: 0 (AIRSPY)
Firmware Version: AirSpy NOS v1.0.0-rc10-6-g4008185 2020-05-08
Part ID Number: 0x6906002B 0x00000030
Serial Number: 0x466C64C8306B65C7
Supported sample rates:
10.000000 MSPS
2.500000 MSPS
Close board 1
Then the final check before changing the SatNOGS config is to see if the hardware is able to support the high airspy sample rates:
This is done with the following command:
airspy_rx -r /dev/null -t 2
Device Serial Number: 0x466C64C8306B65C7
Stop with Ctrl-C
Streaming at 9.999 MSPS
Streaming at 9.999 MSPS
Streaming at 10.000 MSPS
Streaming at 10.000 MSPS
Streaming at 10.000 MSPS
Streaming at 10.000 MSPS
Streaming at 10.000 MSPS
Lets see if this will help you to get it up and running.
Jan - PE0SAT
SatNOGS Debian install