[HN Gopher] SkyRoof: New Ham Satellite Tracking and SDR Receiver...
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       SkyRoof: New Ham Satellite Tracking and SDR Receiver Software
        
       Author : rmason
       Score  : 114 points
       Date   : 2025-06-05 19:15 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.rtl-sdr.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.rtl-sdr.com)
        
       | JKCalhoun wrote:
       | Super cool.
       | 
       | Tangent: I know this is communications related -- but I was
       | wondering today (just read something about some new FRB's) if
       | radio astronomy, of a kind, could be something an amateur could
       | deep dive into and actually contribute to.
       | 
       | I recall a project that allowed you to tune into long radio
       | emissions from the sun -- perhaps keep tabs on the solar weather?
       | 
       | (And stupid me thought astronomy was more or less headed for
       | stagnancy decades ago.)
        
         | jdougan wrote:
         | Recently: "Radio Astronomy Software Defined Radio (Rasdr)
         | (radio-astronomy.org)"
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44134364
        
         | goku12 wrote:
         | I'm out of touch with RF technology lately. But there are some
         | immediate applications that I can think of, where a community
         | approach can yield interesting results. That 'long wavelength'
         | part in your question would necessitate receiver antennas with
         | a large radio aperture to get some reasonable spatial
         | resolutions - sometimes on the order of kilometers. The
         | practical way in which this problem is addressed is using
         | signal processing techniques like Aperture Synthesis and Very
         | Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI).
         | 
         | If the worldwide community can share the cost by deploying
         | cheap receivers and donating compute time, it can lead to some
         | interesting results. Much of these already exist, but they do
         | have room for innovations and improvements. It's also a fun way
         | to demystify these seemingly esoteric concepts.
        
       | CapricornNoble wrote:
       | Nifty to see this. I was recently brainstorming about FOSS
       | satellite tracking tools that could be pressed into service for
       | military operations planning. Stuff ranging from planning attacks
       | when certain space-based sensors have gaps in coverage, to
       | working out minimum requirements for targeting adversary
       | satellites. A lot of budget-constrained forces might be able to
       | leverage SkyRoof to fill this gap.
        
       | zombot wrote:
       | Since macOS 14 (Sonoma) I'm unable to find SDR software that
       | works with my SDRPlay device. CubicSDR still worked in Ventura. I
       | was hoping this app also had a macOS build.
        
         | brewtide wrote:
         | Perhaps https://www.sdrpp.org/ would work for you? Just
         | throwing it out there -- I've learned that my few SDRplay
         | devices def. require a lot more pieces and parts on my linux
         | machines than any of the other SDR devices that I own.
        
       | politelemon wrote:
       | Source code is here: https://github.com/VE3NEA/SkyRoof
       | 
       | It's in .NET so I'd think it ought to be buildable on Linux too?
       | Unless there are some specific hardware/driver requirements
       | involved (there isn't much in the readme right now)
        
         | runjake wrote:
         | It's not buildable on Linux. The app uses WinForms and a number
         | of other Windows-only .net libraries.
         | 
         | Thanks for the link!
        
       | ThaFresh wrote:
       | a satellite made of ham will never work
        
         | MagerValp wrote:
         | ?Porq ue?
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-06 23:02 UTC)