I like the simplicity of Cubic SDR, but found it used a lot of processing power and overheated my laptop a couple times. Your vehicle's metallic body will become a large ground plane and improve the antenna's reception. If you can drive to your location, try sticking the magnetic Tram antenna on the top of your vehicle. You'll get better results if you do this from an area relatively clear of obstructions like buildings and trees, with good horizon-to-horizon vistas. Connect the Tram antenna to your USB stick using the cable adapter, and plug everything in to your laptop.

RF coaxial cable UHF SO239 PL259 female to MCX male right angle connector.

Tram 1185 Amateur Dual-Band Magnet Antenna.

Here is my best weather satellite image to date: You will be more likely to succeed if you are computer-savvy and have the patience to Google your way out of a problem.

Read through all of the instructions first before deciding whether or not to try this on your own.

Feel free to post questions in the comments, but I don't have the capacity to provide unlimited technical support.

There is always the risk that you will be out the cost of your equipment and the time invested. I figured this would be a good starting exercise, and now that I've had a few successes, I'm ready to post my first SDR activity guide. Early on, I found a guide by Matt Gray explaining how to download images from NOAA weather satellites. Reasonably well, thanks to tech support from Justin Foley and John Bellardo, two radio experts at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, LightSail's primary ground station. In other words, if I can figure it out, I can write how-to guides for everyone else. Since I'm also a radio newbie, we figured a good initial task would be seeing how hard it was for me to get my own Software Defined Radio (SDR) system up and running, at a relatively low cost, and perform a few basic exercises.

(Providing you live within range of LightSail's 24-degree inclination orbit-we'll calculate a specific latitude range for that.) We also want to make tracking LightSail an inclusive activity that anyone, including folks without any prior radio experience, can enjoy. Other missions, like the University of Michigan's GRIFEX CubeSat, have done this. Our ultimate goal is building a software tool that will help LightSail trackers capture and submit data to our packet repository in real-time. 2016-we'd like to better support and leverage the radio community. Many of you sent us beacon packets, some of which were very helpful in telling us what our spacecraft was doing when it was out of range of our U.S.-based tracking stations.įor our second flight-still tentatively scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in Sept.

During the LightSail test mission, dozens of radio trackers around the world tuned in to our spacecraft's signal.

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