HAB Tracker Station

Project pagina voor het high altitude balloon tracking/listening station dat we voor de space aan het inrichten zijn.

Done

Acquired Hardware

• "ezcap USB 2.0 DVB-T/DAB/FM" dongle, RTL2838U, Fitipower FC0013 tuner, Supported gain values (23): -9.9 -7.3 -6.5 -6.3 -6.0 -5.8 -5.4 5.8 6.1 6.3 6.5 6.7 6.8 7.0 7.1 17.9 18.1 18.2 18.4 18.6 18.8 19.1 19.7
• VK5QI HABamp
• Raspberry Pi
• Test payload, RFM22b sending RTTY strings on 434.250MHz. Code here: https://github.com/costyn/rfmtest/blob/master/rfmtest.pde

Software

• Sending test payload --> works!
• Sending data from rtl_tcp on RasPi over the network --> works! (1024000 samples/second seems to go fine when both are on a wired connection)
• gqrx to listen to audio --> works!
• dl-fldigi RTTY decoding --> works!
• Testing VNC performance with gqrx and dl-fldigi --> usable with JPEG compression and 8 bits of color

Todo

• Setting up a virtual machine with gqrx and dl-fldigi

revspace@habraspi:~$ rtl_tcp -a 10.42.43.20

Found 1 device(s). Found Fitipower FC0013 tuner

Using ezcap USB 2.0 DVB-T/DAB/FM dongle

Todo

• Site survey roof, check if there is already some sort of lightning protection system, and see if we can add some metal construction to it ourselfs
• Currently we have no antenna. Well need some heavy duty (directional?) antenna.
  • Do we make one or do we buy one?
  • What kind of antenna? (keep in mind we only have line of sight towards south/southwest)
• Find and buy IP56 enclosure: http://linitx.com/product/13265
• Routing Ethernet (with PoE) towards the roof, possibly using (something like) this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200841109556
• Your ideas, we love them!