That should not be happening - if you have access to a windows machine, it might be worth comparing the performance between the linux and the windows variant of OuternetInABox.
It could be the fades, in which case a different location is worth checking.
@Abhishek. @g0hwwb
The Outernet in a box works smoothly for me too 
I have already received the SpaceX, Karnataka and Clinton pdf files and I have yet to see a CRC error with a reported SNR of 11-13 dB.
My current configuration is: Home-made 12-turn helical antenna + MiniKits EME179 LNA + 15 m RG58 + RTL-SDR v.3. Tomorrow I’ll test the Outernet LNA and patch antenna as well as a couple of other dongles.
As I had never used a VM before, in order to test the OuternetInABox, I cloned my Windows 7 system SSD to a spare HDD just to be on the safe side. I had forgotten how long it took to boot… LOL
Merkouris, SV2HWM
Thessaloniki, Greece
Please send photos of your 12 turn L-Band Antenna.
Thanks for letting us know!
As far as the VM is concerned - we built it specifically so that the host system is not affected at all. Nothing is left behind on the system, nothing is installed. Its perfectly safe, and leaves no traces.
Abhishek, is it possible to stop the VM’s screen-saver kicking in? I have inadvertently killed the demod process a couple of times whilst interacting with the VM, which I wouldn’t have to do if the console didn’t go blank.
Regarding the SNR dropouts I reported yesterday, I’m still seeing the same thing and have concluded that its probably not fast-fading due to multipath from passing traffic, as the SNR dropouts don’t seem to correlate with instantaneous traffic or statistically with diurnal variations (though after only one day this conclusion might seem premature).
Nevertheless, I have received 24 items, totalling 2.4 MB, with a PER of 0.0078.
The RSSI doesn’t vary by much when the SNR plummets. The constellation does fall to bits as might be expected (I hadn’t noticed this before as I can’t really look at the SNR and the constellation at the same time). I have reconfirmed that there is no sign of the SNR dropouts using the desktop linux s/w that never showed a state higher than CODE LK and never saw any frames, the SNR was about 9dB as expected, +/1dB and the RSSI matched the VM at -102dBm.
I hooked up my USRP B100/WBX to my discone antenna, with a masthead wide-band preamp that’s good up to 2GHz and observed the spectrum, There was evidence of some fairly low level intermittent broadband noise that could be related.
That said, I generally have severe intermod problems around here. That preamp has a tuneable notch (for 153MHz pager) and a custom made multiple notch filter to cut high power VHF FM broadcast signals, up front to try to avoid intermod from the preamp (which has a convenient remote variable gain control). There are other high power VHF emitters around here, but those are the really problematic ones, that tend to ruin everything. At the moment, the tuneable notch has drifted a bit due to the hot weather and so there is intermod being produced in the masthead preamp.
So it is possible that the L-band kit is either being impacted by the noise I’ve seen (which would then presumably not be due to intermod), or that both the monitor system and the L-band kit are being impacted by intermod.
I shall continue to experiment, and at the weekend will take the laptop out for a walk again and see what results I get with the new VM.
Out of curiosity, can anyone tell me what the stop-band attenuation of the L-band LNA’s SAW filter is in the VHF band?
I suppose intermod generally wouldn’t be a problem for Outernet’s target audience, as if there’s that much RF flying about, there’s quite probably easier options for getting access to information.
Thanks for reading. Sorry for going on a bit 
And has an executable readme.
+1
@g0hww: I will try to have that in the next version. Honestly - my hope was that users wouldn’t have to deal with the console at all 
The safest way to exit the screensaver is to press one of the shift/ctrl/alt keys - by themselves.
@Abishek: Ah, but I’m a radio ham. I’m probably more interested in the radio side than the content. At least I’m not listening to the signal too 
The thing with pressing one of “shift/ctrl/alt keys - by themselves” is that I’m always using Shift+Alt+Up|Down|left|Right to switch between my 9 virtual desktops, and if I try to do that while the VM has focus things go awry, so if I don’t have to select the VM at all, then it won’t be a problem!
Here follows the results using various reception equipment. In all tests the LNA was connected to the receiver with 15 m RG58 coaxial cable but I have yet to measure the cable loss.
RTL-SDR v.3 + Minikits LNA + Helical antenna 11-13 dB
RTL-SDR v.3 + Minikits LNA + Outernet Patch antenna 10-11 dB
RTL-SDR v.3 + Outernet LNA + Helical antenna 10-11 dB
RTL-SDR v.3 + Outernet LNA + Outernet Patch antenna 9-10 dB
RTL-SDR v.3 + Minikits LNA + Vaisala Radiosonde GPS Quadrifilar 2-3 dB (PER 0.002)
The small quadrifilar produced the lowest SNR because it is an omnidirectional antenna, but for this very reason I think that it could be a good choice for mobile use, probably with two LNAs in series. I will test it again connecting the receiver directly to the LNA without any cable losses.
Excellent results were also obtained with the RTL-SDR v.2, with about 1 dB lower SNR in all combinations.
An old no-name E4000 dongle, without TXCO, was also tested. It showed the best SNR in SDRsharp on the L-band signals, but the Outernet demodulator could not detect the received signal. Most probably due to the fact that it was about 15 kHz off the frequency. I think that a frequency correction setting should be incorporated in the demodulator.
I also tested the popular LNA4ALL but it resulted in less than 1 dB SNR. Nevertheless, it can be used for a successful decoding of the strong 600 and 1200 bps AERO signals.
@Abhishek: Yes, the VM works perfectly without affecting at all the host OS
Very interesting. Thank you for posting this.
We do offer manual entry of offset. @Abhishek is that not exposed in the VM?
Was the omni pointed at all? I realize that an omni can’t actually be pointed, but just wanting to isolate variables.
How much stronger is AERO?
@SV2HWM Incorporating offset that is related to the dongle can be done by manually adjusting the frequency. The -f command will set the frequency for the VM. This can also be done through the Librarian UI (if you’re running rxOS).
In reply to your question about the strength of the AERO signals, here follows three screenshots of SDRSharp showing the Outernet and the AERO signals on Alphasat as they are received here in Greece.
AERO 600 and 1200 bps on Inmarsat 25E
Outernet on Inmarsat 25E
AERO 10500 bps on Inmarsat 25E
I run the Outernet in a Box in VM on Windows. Is it still possible to set the offset frequency?
My Linux PC does not support hardware virtualization, so I cannot run the VM software. Have the desktop Linux problems been resolved?
