Hello, I’m from Argentina, I would like to know if you continue to work on the outernet, I would like to buy the reception equipment and belong to the community, how can I do it?
There are four items currently in the store:
- A DreamCatcher board. It includes an integrated LNA and SAW filter. (currently sold out)
- An SDRx board
- An (active) L-band antenna with an integrated LNA and SAW filter.
- A passive antenna.
There are two pieces of software for download that run in the DreamCatcher board:
- Skylark – for receiving Outernet
- Armbian - an operating system that allows experimenters to run the DreamCatcher board. This does not include an application to access Outernet. It’s intended for experimenters to have access to the DreamCatcher board for other projects.
They continue to support skylark for a CHIP computer from NTC, but the CHIP is no longer being produced.
Currently the DreamCatcher board will work with either the passive or active antenna through two separate antenna ports and with the firmware for either receiving Outernet or experimenting with the DreamCatcher board.
The advantage of the active antenna is that it’s powered by bias voltage supplied through the coax. This means the signal is amplified before it goes through a length of coax. The tiny coax is very lossy at 1.5GHz. I don’t know how far the active antenna can be separated from the DreamCatcher board.
Things are in flux. Some changes have been hinted upon and nothing has been revealed so far. So far what I gather is that the service will remain and the data rates will significantly increase. Will the antennas still work? They changed from Ku-band to the L-band in order to move away from larger dish antennas. Will there be a new iteration of the DreamCatcher board? I don’t know.
There used to be software that ran on a Raspberry Pi to drive the SDRx and the passive antenna. It also worked with the Raspberry Pi in combination with the active antenna. This has been discontinued.
I hope this helps.
–Konrad, WA4OSH
1 Like