Month: December 2017

Getting the client with git is quite simple. I went to /usr/local/source and executed the following command:

git clone https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/satnogs-client.git

The code revealed (in scheduler/tasks.py) that it took information on e.g. the location of the ground station from a file called settings – probably even settings.py. And lo and behold: in the root of the tree there was a settings.py. Inspection of that file revealed the the definition of the variables was taken from  some environment variables, but who defines those variables?

Visits: 44

Pip has a package containing the client. You get it with this command

pip install satnogsclient

When you run the installed program, it aborts immediately with this error message:

Exception: SATNOGS_STATION_ID not configured.

so quite clearly some configuration is required, but how? There were no obvious hints neither in the code nor on the SatNOGS web site.

Perhaps a look into the code might help. Try getting the source with git.

Visits: 39

It appears that there are at least three ways of getting satnogs-client onto one of your compters:

• Go to Github and read ‘README.rst’ which tell you you can either install using pip:

  pip install satnogsclient

  or

• clone the latest development version:

  $ git clone https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/satnogs-client.git
  $ cd satnogs-client
  $ pip install -e .
  

• The reference platform for SatNOGS is the Raspbery Pi 3. so the SatNOGS wiki has a few words on the matter: SatNOGS wiki on the RaspberryPi 3

I have tried all three methods and I’ll comment on all three of them. 😉

Visits: 50

The client module (dubbed satnogs-client) is one of the two areas I’ll concentrate upon now.

I finally located the documentation for the module: SatNOGS Client Documentation  So away for some reading.

A few days later: I have found out that the client uses the utilities from hamlib (Hamlib wiki) in casu rigctld and rotctld. Since I have no antennas (yet) I have concentrated on learning how to use rigctld and rigctl.

Using rigctl is quite simple. My radio is an Icom 821 so after having studied the man page I could start rigctl with this command:

sudo /usr/local/bin/rigctl -m 334 -r /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 19200 -c 0x60 -vvvvv

I could talk to the 821 and e.g. see the frequency change in the display.

BTW You may as well use rigctld for this (This is what satnogs-client does, I have found out). The only difference is that instead of receiving commands from stdin rigctld reads them off a TCP socket, default 4532. Use ‘netcat’ to communicate with rigctld:

nc localhost:4532

The available commands are documented in the man page for rigctl and/or rigctld.

The next task will be to get satnogs-client up and running.

Visits: 47

SatNOGS stands officially for “Satellite Networked Open Ground Station” which I take to mean “Open Networked Satellite Ground Station”, but ONSGS is not a very user friendly acronym…

The SatNOGS web site satnogs.org has a wealth of information, but the page I found most useful is the wiki: wiki.satnogs.org. I’ll quote one image that gives a overall view of the whole setup:

Since my primary purpose of the whole  exercise is to familiarize myself with SatNOGS rather than building an actual grundstation and since I have have no antennas at the moment I’ll restrict myself to work with the two boxes ‘SatNOGS client’ and ‘Signal Reception’ (marked in red in the picture).

I have at hand a radio (an ICOM 821) and several options for decoders: an old DSP12 TNC, a SignaLink soundcard and a standard coundcard in the my workstation. Alternatively I might acquire a SDR unit. Doing this will probably teach me a lot more about signal processing than working with the older ‘classical’ ICOM 821.

The hardware for the SatNOGS client could be either my workstation or a Raspberry Pi 3.

I consider setting up the SatNOGS client as a piece of cake (how difficult can installing a piece of software be?) so the next step will be to get the 821 back into the shack and connect the above mentioned decoders to it. Perhaps I should rig something up as a receive antenna.

Visits: 52