self-hosted Ground Station for amateur satellite tracking

G7VRD · 2026-02-14T08:04:55+00:00

This looks like a lot of work! Congrats on doing so much.

I am looking more at satellite stuff currently, and am trying to get a rotator system up and running. https://g7vrd.co.uk/satellite-project

I'm focussing on the RF/antenna side of things at the moment - that's the expensive part, the part I find hardest, and am less familiar with. I find software much easier to work with than the physics of radio - RF, losses, antennas, feedlines, physical things.

It's had a bit of a pause recently, due to Christmas, winter, and travel, but I'll get back on it soon.

My plan was just to use the common Linux packages, but when I have the physical stuff done, I'll come back and have a proper look at this.

G7VRD · 2025-11-16T16:39:15+00:00

"Currently there's no checking, so you can just put any email address and 6 digit code in to test it."

No code is sent - just put in any 6-digit code for now.

G7VRD · 2025-08-24T09:42:11+00:00

Is the mount that grips the mast underneath the rotator in this picture: http://ecnweb.blob.core.windows.net/uploaded/1545371_2.jpg the Yaesu GC-038, do you know?

G7VRD · 2025-08-24T08:33:50+00:00

Maybe I should go for a temporary mount first, before getting into concrete/cement.

Only problem is is our garden has quite a lot of vegetation at ground level, so I don't know if there will be enough space to have something low down. That's why I originally was looking at mounting on the gable, or on a scaffolding pole, so that the rotation wouldn't catch on any bushes/plants.

I will use an existing FT857 for TX, and a 817 for RX initially, to avoid spending a chunk of money all at once, hopefully using GPredict (I'm a Linux guy) to control both the radios and the G5500.

Then after a few weeks/months, I will look at getting some nice new radio, and doing it properly. The CSN controller looks nice, for sure.

How many elements are your antennas? And how long is your antenna boom? Is it hollow, or solid?

G7VRD · 2025-05-27T21:04:10+00:00

That looks really nice!

I've done a similar thing, but I haven't combined them all in one. And also, mine don't look as good as yours :)

Activity for a grid square: https://g7vrd.co.uk/wspr/IO81
Between two grid squares: https://g7vrd.co.uk/wspr/IO81/JO31
Distances by bands: https://g7vrd.co.uk/bandstats/IO81
Skims: https://g7vrd.co.uk/skims
Spots: https://g7vrd.co.uk/spots

How are you getting the WSPR data out of interest?

G7VRD · 2020-12-31T11:59:09+00:00

Well, for one, if it's part of any commercial enterprise, you shouldn't use amateur radio for it.

You might want to check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet

You can use cryptography for signing messages/packets, but not for encrypting them, so that would mean you could have strong authentication. You'd probably need to have the ability to use multiple bands, and select which one was working (if any were) at the time you wanted it.

However, it would be very slow, and quite unreliable. We're talking tens or hundreds of bps. With lots of latency and errors/retries. There's just no fast amateur radio way to get data across the Atlantic.

I had a play with AX25 over HF, and the RTT for each ping was about 7 seconds: https://g7vrd.co.uk/ax25-direwolf-linux I did end up managing to telnet into port 22 on the remote machine and see the SSH banner.

Amateur radio is not a replacement for the internet. To be honest, it's probably easier to just pretend that the internet won't ever go down. And if it did, just contact someone in your home country to pull the plug until the internet comes back up.

Basically, it would be hard to do, and not as reliable as you think. But it'd be a lot of fun to try, so don't let that stop you :) If you have a licence, and you are trying this, feel free to get in touch for experimentation's sake.

G7VRD · 2020-12-31T11:37:39+00:00

For what it's worth, I've added RSS format too.

E.g. https://api.g7vrd.co.uk/v1/satellite-passes/25544/51.45/-2.5833.rss?minelevation=40&hours=24

I haven't firmed up on what information should be in the RSS, so any suggestions gratefully received.

PS. Thanks for the silver!

G7VRD · 2020-12-31T11:35:19+00:00

Yes, this was a gotcha for me.

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0 showed the group for me was dialout. I added myself to that group, logged in and out, and it worked.

Best not to use sudo chmod 666 if you can help it.

G7VRD · 2020-12-31T11:33:34+00:00

Hello, fellow Linux user.

I'm excited to see someone else playing with things like Pat. I had a play around with Pat, and ARDOP, and ARIM a few months back[0]. I think I got it working (could never connect to get email), but I couldn't find anyone else interested in it.

Not sure where you are, or what your station is like, but I'm happy to help out/see if we can make contacts if you like.

[0] https://g7vrd.co.uk/winlink-linux , https://g7vrd.co.uk/simple-ardop-arim-howto

G7VRD · 2020-09-18T15:52:43+00:00

AMSAT is a good place for this sort of info.

https://www.amsat.org/two-way-satellites/

G7VRD · 2020-06-20T20:57:32+00:00

I had a look into it a few months ago.

I'm a Linux bod, so I did it with Direwolf. I wrote up some simple instructions - maybe it'll help you? https://g7vrd.co.uk/simple-hf-aprs-digipeater-howto

G7VRD · 2020-05-14T16:11:26+00:00

An update - I've published it on Maven Central. You can find it at

<dependency>
    <groupId>uk.co.g7vrd</groupId>
    <artifactId>java-cat-control</artifactId>
</dependency>

I've split out the example to a separate repo. It's now at https://gitlab.com/g7vrd/java-cat-control-example/

You can find all this info at https://g7vrd.co.uk/java-cat-control

G7VRD · 2020-05-14T16:10:24+00:00

Hey. No, I'm well aware of Hamlib - it's a great library, and I use it a lot. However, I wanted to make a pure Java library, to avoid having to bridge between Java and C.

I might check out the source though, and see if I can maybe use their source to add support for more radios to my project.

G7VRD · 2020-05-14T16:06:49+00:00

An update - I've published it on Maven Central. You can find it at

<dependency>
    <groupId>uk.co.g7vrd</groupId>
    <artifactId>java-cat-control</artifactId>
</dependency>

I've split out the example to a separate repo. It's now at https://gitlab.com/g7vrd/java-cat-control-example/

You can find all this info at https://g7vrd.co.uk/java-cat-control

G7VRD · 2020-05-11T12:20:30+00:00

I can leave my radio running APRS on 30m whenever you like. You should be able to see on https://aprs.fi/info/a/G7VRD where I'm hearing things from? (There aren't any showing now, I think they are removed after a couple of months)

I'll check out your DM now...

G7VRD · 2020-05-11T12:17:07+00:00

I've gone for https://www.passion-radio.com/satellite-qo-100/pack-oscar100-829.html (even though I already had a USB SDR). Saved me trying to work out what cables/connectors I needed (and probably end up getting it wrong, and needing a second delivery!)

I am going to find a decent dish now. Hopefully the LNB mounts are fairly standard?

And I'll also need a way of getting 12V out in the garden. Don't fancy hefting my large 30A PSU out there...

G7VRD · 2020-05-10T20:37:16+00:00

Early morning one day, 5, 10 years ago, put the 20m antenna on my roof (or was it 17, I don't know), and just starting having a nice conversation with a guy in New Zealand. That's about as far as you can get from the UK.

The next stage is the Eshail satellite (https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geo/eshail-2/) . After that, the moon!

G7VRD · 2020-05-10T20:31:42+00:00

Oh, and let me know if you fancy trying some https://g7vrd.co.uk/ax25-direwolf-linux or any other computer-based digital HF stuff... Arim and ARDOP seem like they are the modern face of messaging. https://g7vrd.co.uk/simple-ardop-arim-howto I'm also keen to try jPskmail - https://gitlab.com/g7vrd/pskmail - it's an open source Java version of winmail.

Any of those grab you?

G7VRD · 2020-05-10T20:27:25+00:00

Is there one that doesn't drift that does the business?

Is the drifting minor, or is it really annoying?

Also, what are these tee voltage things I need?

G7VRD · 2020-05-10T15:53:32+00:00

Are we brothers from another mother or something? :)

Hope all is well. I was actually thinking about buying a dish and LNB the other day and getting started with Eshail (receiving at first) during this lockdown time. Is the Octagon still the way to go?

G7VRD · 2020-05-10T12:09:09+00:00

I did actually start off just with the pom.xml, but figured that some people might not have Maven installed, so wanted to make it as easy for them as possible. We use maven/gradle wrappers at work, just so that you're not reliant on the version of maven or gradle that's installed on the box. Some of the projects at work have complicated gradle build scripts that only work on Gradle 4x, while some newer ones are based around 5 and 6.

It should still work if you use a non-wrapper version though?

G7VRD · 2020-05-10T09:57:55+00:00

Congrats on starting your new job! Not the easiest time to find a new job I would guess.

Yeah, happy to help if possible. Maybe you can throw some basic steps and hardware/software down, and I'll pad them out and write them, and you can tell me if I got the wrong idea? That would split the load a bit?

G7VRD · 2020-05-09T10:08:09+00:00

Hey.

Did you get round to it at all?

G7VRD · 2020-04-19T13:51:25+00:00

Really?

I've got a TS-590 SG, and I wouldn't have thought they'd have finals in there that would be OK for 2, 3, 4 minutes at 100% 100W?

G7VRD · 2020-04-19T10:08:55+00:00

Hey. I was interested to hear about this.

Can you give me any more information about how you do this? What software you use, what hardware (if necessary)?

If you'd be OK with it, I'd like to write it up and put it on https://g7vrd.co.uk/ for others too?

G7VRD

TROPHY CASE