satellite

187 Articles

SkyRoof, A New Satellite Tracker For Hams

June 10, 2025 by 13 Comments

Communicating with space-based ham radio satellites might sound like it’s something that takes a lot of money, but in reality it’s one of the more accessible aspects of the hobby. Generally all that’s needed is a five-watt handheld transceiver and a directional antenna. Like most things in the ham radio world, though, it takes a certain amount of skill which can’t be easily purchased. Most hams using satellites like these will rely on some software to help track them, which is where this new program from [Alex Shovkoplyas] comes in.

The open source application is called SkyRoof and provides a number of layers of information about satellites aggregated into a single information feed. A waterfall diagram is central to the display, with not only the satellite communications shown on the plot but information about the satellites themselves. From there the user can choose between a number of other layers of information about the satellites including their current paths, future path prediction, and a few different ways of displaying all of this information. The software also interfaces with radios via CAT control, and can even automatically correct for the Doppler shift that is so often found in satellite radio communications.

For any ham actively engaged in satellite tracking or space-based repeater communications, this tool is certainly worth trying out. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows currently. For those not looking to operate under Microsoft’s thumb, projects such as DragonOS do a good job of collecting up the must-have Linux programs for hams and other radio enthusiasts.

Inside Starlink’s User Terminal

May 14, 2025 by 33 Comments

If you talk about Starlink, you are usually talking about the satellites that orbit the Earth carrying data to and from ground stations. Why not? Space is cool. But there’s another important part of the system: the terminals themselves. Thanks to [DarkNavy], you don’t have to tear one open yourself to see what’s inside.

The terminal consists of two parts: the router and the antenna. In this context, antenna is somewhat of a misnomer, since it is really the RF transceiver and antenna all together. The post looks only at the “antenna” part of the terminal.

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Satellite Internet On 80s Hardware

February 14, 2025 by 2 Comments

Portability has been a goal of a sizable section of the computing world for many decades now. While the obvious products of this are laptops, there are a number of “luggable” PCs that pack more power while ostensibly maintaining their portability. Going back in time past things like the LAN party era of the 90s and 00s takes us to the early era of luggables, with the Commodore SX-64 being one such machine of this era. Its portability is on display in this video where [saveitforparts] is using it to access the Internet over satellite.

The project uses a Glocom Inmarsat modem and antenna to access the internet through a geostationary satellite, but since this computer is about four decades old now this takes a little bit more effort than a modern computer. A Teensy microcontroller is used to emulate a modem so that the Ethernet connection from the satellite modem can be understood by the Commodore. There was a significant amount of setup and troubleshooting required as well, especially regarding IP addresses and networking but eventually [saveitforparts] got the system up and running well enough to chat on a BBS and browse Wikipedia.

One thing he found that might make a system like this relevant for a modern user is that the text-only mode of the Commodore significantly limited data use. For a normal Internet connection this might be a problem, but on a geostationary satellite network where the data is orders of magnitude more expensive, this can be surprisingly helpful. We might not recommend an SX-64 system specifically, but one inspired by similar computers like this text-only cyberdeck might do the trick with the right networking connections.

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Communicating With Satellites Like It’s 1957

February 3, 2025 by 14 Comments

When the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was put into orbit around Earth, anyone in the path of the satellite could receive the beeps transmitted by the satellite provided they had some simple radio equipment. Of course, there was no two-way communication with this satellite, and it only lasted a few weeks before its batteries died. Here in the future, though, there are many more satellites in orbit and a few are specifically meant for ham radio operators. And, like the ’50s, it doesn’t take too much specialized equipment to communicate with them, although now that communication can be two-way.

The first step in this guide by [W2PAK] is to know where these satellites are in the sky. The simplest way to do that is to use a smartphone app called GoSatWatch and, when configured for a specific location, shows the satellites currently overhead. After that it’s time to break out the radio gear, which can be surprisingly inexpensive. A dual-band handheld is required since satellite uplink and downlink can be on different bands, and the antenna can be made from simple parts as well as [W2PAK] demonstrates in a separate video. Combined, this can easily be done for less than $100. [W2PAK] also goes over the proper format and etiquette for a satellite contact as well, so a new operator can pick it up quickly.

Using satellites as repeaters opens up a lot of capabilities when compared to terrestrial communications. Especially for operators with entry-level licenses who are restricted to mostly VHF and UHF, it adds a challenge as well as significantly increased range compared to ground-based repeaters and line-of-sight communications. There are plenty of activities around satellites that don’t require a license at all, too, like this project which downloads weather imagery from weather satellites.

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Making The Longest-Distance Radio Contact Possible

January 25, 2025 by 29 Comments

One of the more popular activities in the ham radio world is DXing, which is attempting to communicate with radio stations as far away as possible. There are some feats that will earn some major credibility in this arena, like two-way communication with Antarctica with only a few watts of power, long-path communication around the globe, or even bouncing a signal off the moon and back to a faraway point on Earth. But these modes all have one thing in common: they’re communicating with someone who’s also presumably on the same planet. Barring extraterrestrial contact, if you want to step up your DX game you’ll want to try to contact some of our deep-space probes (PDF).

[David Prutchi] aka [N2QG] has been doing this for a number of years now and has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. He’s using both a 3.2 meter dish and a 1.2 meter dish for probing deep space, as well as some custom feed horns and other antennas to mount to them. Generally these signals are incredibly small since they travel a long way through deep space, so some amplification of the received signals is also needed. Not only that, but since planets and satellites are all moving with respect to each other, some sort of tracking system is needed to actively point the dish in the correct direction.

With all of that taken care of, it’s time to see what sort of signals are coming in. Compared to NASA’s 70-meter antennas used to communicate with deep space, some signals received on smaller dishes like these will only see the carrier wave. This was the case when an amateur radio group used an old radio telescope to detect one of the Voyager signals recently. But there are a few cases where [David] was able to actually receive data and demodulate it, so it’s not always carrier-only. If you’re sitting on an old satellite TV dish like these, we’d certainly recommend pointing it to the sky to see what’s out there. If not, you can always 3D print one.

Bouncing Signals Off Of Satellites Other Than The Moon

January 24, 2025 by 8 Comments

The moon is a popular target for ham radio operators to bounce signals since it’s fairly large and follows a predictable path. There are some downsides, though; it’s not always visible from the same point on Earth and is a relatively long way away. Thinking they could trade some distance for size, an amateur radio group from the Netherlands was recently able to use a radio telescope pointed at a geostationary satellite to reflect a signal back down to Earth, using this man-made satellite to complete the path instead of the more common natural one.

While there are plenty of satellites in orbit meant for amateur radio communication (including the International Space Station, although it occasionally does other things too), these all have built-in radio transmitters or repeaters specifically meant for re-transmitting received signals. They’re also generally not in geostationary orbit. So, with a retired radio telescope with a 20-meter dish aimed directly at one of the ones already there, they sent out a signal which bounced off of the physical body of the satellite and then back down where it was received by a station in Switzerland. Of course, the path loss here is fairly extreme as well since the satellite is small compared to the moon and geostationary orbit is a significant distance away, so they used the Q65 mode in WSJT-X which is specifically designed for recovering weak signals.

Don’t break out the tape measure Yagi antenna to try this yourself just yet, though. This path is not quite as reliable as Earth-Moon-Earth for a few reasons the group is not quite sure about yet. Not every satellite they aimed their dish at worked, although they theorize that this might be because of different shapes and sizes of the satellites or that the solar panels were not pointing the correct direction. But they were able to make a few contacts using this method nonetheless, a remarkable achievement they can add to their list which includes receiving a signal from one of the Voyager spacecraft.

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Hackaday Links: January 19, 2025

January 19, 2025 by 8 Comments

This week, we witnessed a couple of space oopsies as both Starship and New Glenn suffered in-flight mishaps on the same day. SpaceX’s Starship was the more spectacular, with the upper stage of the seventh test flight of the full stack experiencing a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” thanks to a fire developing in the aft section of the stage somewhere over the Turks and Caicos islands, about eight and a half minutes after takeoff from Boca Chica. The good news is that the RUD happened after first-stage separation, and that the Super Heavy booster was not only able to safely return to the pad but also made another successful “chopsticks” landing on the tower. Sorry, that’s just never going to get old.

On the Bezos side of the billionaire rocket club, the maiden flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn ended with the opposite problem. The upper stage reached orbit, but the reusable booster didn’t make it back to the landing barge parked off the Bahamas. What exactly happened isn’t clear yet, but judging by the telemetry the booster was coming in mighty fast, which may indicate that the engines didn’t restart fully and the thing just broke up when it got into the denser part of the atmosphere.

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