Re: [amsat-bb] Free content from six satellites via Outernet (APRS?)
Global Ham channel?
We should find someone to work with the OUTERNET folks to add an amateur radio channel to their downlink. Their satellites could provide connectivity to 99% of amateur radio operators on earth. In addition, Ham Radio can bring to OUTERNET an uplink capability that they currently don't have. And the uplink can be from the same remote areas where there is no service...
How? Like this. They simply take the APRS packet data stream from the global APRS Internet System (APRS-IS) and stream it in their downlink for hams. Then hams anywhere on earth can transmit traffic via HF back into the system. Since the APRS-IS is one of the world's largest HF receiver-diversity receiver networks in the world, then a packet transmitted from almost anywhere on earth has a reasonable chance of being heard at least once at least somewhere and interjected back into the network, where it gets to the OUTERNET and then in the downlink.
The only question, is the atrophy of our HF IGates? Years ago, the HF channel on 10,147.2 MHz had receivers all over the world. I have not listened much recently, but maybe there is still a viable network there. And if not, maybe we could re-invigorate it if it meant global APRS connectivity for ham travelers and hams in remote areas. An HF packet transmitter can be as small as a cigar box and solar powered.
Has anyone tuned in the OUTERNET downlink? I have heard anyone with OUTERNET's free ORxPi software and a Raspberry Pi can get the OUTERNET content when plugged into a DVB-S tuner.
Then there is of course the arm-chair-lawyers concern of rebroadcast of amateur radio content on a non-ham network?
Bob, WB4APR
-----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Thane Richard Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 1:22 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Free content from six satellites via Outernet
Hello everyone,
My name is Thane and I lead content and business development at Outernet. Some of you may be aware of us but I suspect most are not. I am writing this email to introduce Outernet to AMSAT.
Outernet broadcasts a DVB-S signal https://wiki.outernet.is/wiki/Coverage_and_transponder_settings from six different satellites covering 99% of humans on Earth. We created this information service to reach the 4.3 billion people who do not have Internet access and designed it to overcome the problems the Internet presents, namely download speed and recurring cost. Our datacast is completely free to receive, our bitrate is 90 Kbps (~1 GB/day of content), and you can even build your own receiver with a Raspberry Pi http://store.outernet.is/.
Right now, the content we send is curated by us and a group of editors but we are working on a Reddit/Wikipedia/YouTube mashup where the contents of our broadcast can be decided publicly. Currently, we broadcast Wikipedia, 30,000+ ebooks, PLOS One journal articles, Khan Academy, CK12 textbooks, music from SoundCloud, and more.
I want to invite this community to be involved in Outernet and help us build this project. Our current focus is on developing channels to get devices into schools and generally into countries/areas where Internet penetration is very low.
Our forum http://discuss.outernet.is is very active with users and Outernet staff. Please stop by!
Avidly, Thane
-- Thane Richard https://twitter.com/thanerichard Content and Business Development Lead Outernet http://outernet.is/
*Outernet in the press:* WIRED http://www.wired.com/2015/07/plan-beam-web-3-billion-unconnected-humans/ , Inc.com http://www.inc.com/dev-aujla/a-library-for-all.html, TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/13/outernet-joins-the-space-race-for-intern et-accessibility/ , Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/what-is-the-outernet-and-is-it-the-future-of-the-inter n-1659647614 , BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29593734, CNN http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/tech/internet-for-everyone/, Fast Company http://www.fastcolabs.com/3027663/all-about-google-loons-low-cost-space-b ased-competitor-outernet , LA Times http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-g-outernet-explained-201 40808-htmlstory.html , Motherboard http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-the-outernet-plans-to-broadcast-free -internet-from-space
Our receiver, Lighthouse, is now available! To show how revolutionary Lighthouse is, we installed one in a remote school in Uganda. Watch the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlQFoGK1aWQ. _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
You can see the bit rate here: http://status.outernet.is/ It is a 90kbps downlink with pre-determined content. (The speeds could be increased if they paid more to the providers. The tuners are capable of receiving much more)
An interesting idea was if this was on an amateur geostationary satellite. The soon to be launched amateur one over Europe/Africa will probably have a beacon or carrier, but what if that carried the outernet data. The receiving dishes would need to be bigger (depending on bit-rate error correction). That would instantly give 1/3 world coverage with uplinking possible (uplink would need 10 watt 2300Mhz amplifier) The uplink sharing could be controlled by the downlink. I am not sure a HF return channel would scale,
Coverage and frequencies here: http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/eshail-2/ It is designed to handle DVB-S downlinks are per Outernet standard.
On 01/03/2016, Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
Global Ham channel?
We should find someone to work with the OUTERNET folks to add an amateur radio channel to their downlink. Their satellites could provide connectivity to 99% of amateur radio operators on earth. In addition, Ham Radio can bring to OUTERNET an uplink capability that they currently don't have. And the uplink can be from the same remote areas where there is no service...
Is that mini geo definitely going up? If so, when is the launch? The idea you are proposing makes sense. We have three UHF cubesats that should be complete by May. I'm sure there are ways to work together on that.
Follow us @OuternetForAll, Like us on Facebook, signup for updates eepurl.com/Tp87T Share your thoughts and questions with Outernet's community: http://forums.outernet.is/.
On Tue, 1 Mar at 8:15 PM , Dan dan@post.com wrote: You can see the bit rate here: http://status.outernet.is/ It is a 90kbps downlink with pre-determined content. (The speeds could be increased if they paid more to the providers. The tuners are capable of receiving much more)
An interesting idea was if this was on an amateur geostationary satellite. The soon to be launched amateur one over Europe/Africa will probably have a beacon or carrier, but what if that carried the outernet data. The receiving dishes would need to be bigger (depending on bit-rate error correction). That would instantly give 1/3 world coverage with uplinking possible (uplink would need 10 watt 2300Mhz amplifier) The uplink sharing could be controlled by the downlink. I am not sure a HF return channel would scale,
Coverage and frequencies here: http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/eshail-2/ It is designed to handle DVB-S downlinks are per Outernet standard.
On 01/03/2016, Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
Global Ham channel?
We should find someone to work with the OUTERNET folks to add an amateur radio channel to their downlink. Their satellites could provide connectivity to 99% of amateur radio operators on earth. In addition, Ham Radio can bring to OUTERNET an uplink capability that they currently don't have. And the uplink can be from the same remote areas where there is no service...
On 02/03/2016, Outernet Team hello@outernet.is wrote:
Is that mini geo definitely going up? If so, when is the launch? The idea you are proposing makes sense. We have three UHF cubesats that should be complete by May. I'm sure there are ways to work together on that.
It is part of a large geostationary satellite due to launch at the end of 2016 http://www.spacex.com/missions https://spacexstats.com/missions/future I assume at this stage all the equipment is more or less ready waiting for the launch. It is listed on this page as late 2016:
Many European stations are getting ready to receive signals with a slightly modified TV LNB, connected to around a 1m dish. Narrow band uplink will probably need a 1m dish and a 10W amplifier on 2300Mhz. Wideband DVB-S uplink is possible but I assume it would need a much larger dish. There is a narrow band DVB-S format with reduced bit-rate. I have lots of experience in this area.
I picked up the DIY kit w/CHIP, connected and powered it up. Setup for North America, it's setup outside however, I really don't know what I'm looking at or for. Connect to the outernet wifi, but trying to connect with my browser yields: "Your receiver doesn't seem to have reported in. Err: null" Is that telling me whatever satellite I'm looking for isn't really there? Rob KA2CZU
On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 6:37 AM, Daniel Cussen dan@post.com wrote:
On 02/03/2016, Outernet Team hello@outernet.is wrote:
Is that mini geo definitely going up? If so, when is the launch? The idea you are proposing makes sense. We have three UHF cubesats that should be complete by May. I'm sure there are ways to work together on that.
It is part of a large geostationary satellite due to launch at the end of 2016 http://www.spacex.com/missions https://spacexstats.com/missions/future I assume at this stage all the equipment is more or less ready waiting for the launch. It is listed on this page as late 2016:
Many European stations are getting ready to receive signals with a slightly modified TV LNB, connected to around a 1m dish. Narrow band uplink will probably need a 1m dish and a 10W amplifier on 2300Mhz. Wideband DVB-S uplink is possible but I assume it would need a much larger dish. There is a narrow band DVB-S format with reduced bit-rate. I have lots of experience in this area. _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
El 02/03/16 a las 03:15, Daniel Cussen escribió:
An interesting idea was if this was on an amateur geostationary satellite. The soon to be launched amateur one over Europe/Africa will probably have a beacon or carrier, but what if that carried the outernet data.
I think this could be a problem with the regulations for Amateur Radio in several countries. Outernet content is taken from Wikipedia, Youtube and so on. Probably not something you can retransmit freely over Amateur Radio. Also, doing this would probably be considered broadcasting, and Amateurs aren't allowed to broadcast, other than for calling CQ and beacons transmitting a limited amount of information.
However, Bob's idea may still be good for the Amateur geostationary satellites. Retransmitting the whole APRS-IS traffic is probably OK with the regulations. I'm wondering how much bandwidth would be required for this.
EsHail'2 will be carrying a linear transponder, so in principle there is nothing which prevents a ground station from retransmitting this kind of traffic through the linear transponder, as long bandwidth is OK and if this is considered a good use of the transponder (in principle, it is designed for SSB and other narrowband modes).
73,
Dani EA4GPZ.
participants (5)
-
Dani EA4GPZ -
Daniel Cussen -
Outernet Team -
Robert Bruninga -
Robert Switzer